In the Fullness of Time
by Abrae
Summary: When John makes the decision to stay with Mary, what becomes of his famous friendship with Sherlock Holmes? A Mary-friendly, post-HLV, eventual John/Sherlock retirement!lock story.
1. Chapter 1

**September, 2014  
**

When next Sherlock wakes, it's not John, but Mary sitting in the chair by his bed, a bright - and expensive, judging from its sheer volume - bouquet of gerbera daisies nodding cheerfully from their vase on the windowsill. He lifts his head slightly to glance over at the morphine drip, then settles back on the pillow with a sigh.

"I was wondering when you'd wake up," Mary says. "You've been out for hours."

"I see you've managed to surprise me once again, Mrs. Watson. I didn't think they'd let you in."

Mary's lips tighten at the name, and Sherlock reminds himself to stop calling her that. It doesn't seem to bring out her best.

"Who wouldn't? No one knows but the three of us, and John… " her voice trails away and she swallows - looks out the window, away, anywhere else. "He was here all night and most of the morning. I think Mrs. Hudson might've faked exhaustion so he'd take her home."

"I've clearly been underestimating all the women in my life," Sherlock says dryly, and Mary snorts. Then he, too, looks away, long fingers plucking at the loose weave of his blanket.

"Have you -" he begins. "That is, are you - did he -"

Mary gives a shaky laugh.

"Spit it out, Sherlock. Have we talked?"

Sherlock's silent, shuttered expression answers her question more eloquently than words.

"No," she finally says.

For a time, they sit together in a silence that's neither companionable nor tense, but pregnant. Sherlock feels keenly the weight of things unsaid, barely even acknowledged, and he diverts them all into one, uncharacteristically plaintive question.

"Was I wrong?"

Mary meets his eyes, her own clear and unflinching.

"About what?" she counters, a parry to his unintended thrust, and Sherlock lets slip a wide grin. This is what he likes about Mary; where, in the end, Irene had been all too human, all too vulnerable, Mary is a fortress, her walls built higher and deeper than any Sherlock might hope to construct. He admires it - they could have been friends, under different circumstances. If he's being honest, there's a part of him that still hopes they may yet be.

"You do love him," Sherlock clarifies, and there's the flash of ferocity on which Sherlock's gambled everything, lighting up her eyes.

"I would do anything for him," Mary says. Sherlock closes his eyes and lets out a breath he hadn't known he was holding, sinking deep into the pillows.

"Good. I'll -"

"You love him, too."

It's not a question, and Sherlock's mind comes stuttering to a halt.

"I - what?"

Mary pins him with a raised eyebrow. "Love John, Sherlock. Wouldn't you do anything for him, same as me?"

"I… " Sherlock's mind is a blank. "He's my - friend. I don't -"

"Sherlock."

With a dull scrape of wood on vinyl floor, Mary pulls her chair closer to the bed, her _smallruthlesscapable_ hand pressing lightly against his forearm and quelling the vague unease her words have provoked. She glances down at the place where they touch, and when she meets Sherlock's wide eyes again, her gaze has softened.

"Never mind," she says. "I understand, Sherlock, truly I do."

"He loves you," Sherlock blurts out, and Mary gives Sherlock's arm a light squeeze.

"He does - did… I don't honestly know," Mary says mournfully, shaking her head. "Poor man - we're quite a pair."

Sherlock, still reeling from a riot of emotions he barely understands, can't tell which of them - her and John, or her and Sherlock - she's talking about.

"If he'll still have me - I'll keep him safe, Sherlock. No-one will ever get to him."

This is all the assurance Sherlock will ever need. God knows he can't say the same; twice, now, his association with John has had the unintended effect of putting him in danger, and though he'd do anything - has done everything - to keep John safe, Sherlock knows he's a liability. But Mary… if she's managed to keep a lid on her past so tight she's hidden in plain sight for months, she won't let herself be a target, and John will be safe.

Only Magnussen…

"Nothing else matters," Sherlock says softly, breaking the silence that's grown between them. "Nothing. Keep him safe… if you can - if you can, make him happy, and I will consider any debts between us settled."

It isn't until a fat drop of water splashes on his arm that Sherlock looks up to find Mary frowning, her mouth a tight moue of dissatisfaction at this display of emotion.

"Fucking hormones," she finally growls. Sherlock barks out a laugh, then winces as his muscles clench painfully. Mary reaches across the bed to raise his morphine a notch.

"There," she says, settling back in her chair. A beat, and then a final plea.

"Sherlock, don't tell John I was here. Please - he wouldn't understand."

Sherlock's eyes grow heavy as the world begins to fade. He feels himself frown; mumbles, almost to himself, "No… I don't think he would."

Then he sleeps.


	2. Chapter 2

**December 25, 2014**

Sherlock doesn't look back when Mycroft's black sedan pulls away from the terraced house, and John - hand burrowed deep in the same pocket that earlier had held his now-confiscated Sig Sauer - sweeps the street with a distracted gaze. A cold Christmas quiet muffles ambient sound; or perhaps it's John himself, ears still ringing from the sound of Sherlock's unerring shot.

Were this a film, the camera might close in on John's eyes, trace the shadows under his red-rimmed eyes before sliding away to blur the scenery around him. But it's not - this is just another day in the increasingly surreal life of John Watson, formerly of the RAMC, father-to-be, husband to an assassin, friend to a killer.

John gives a soft, bitter snort. He's a killer himself; if his life is surreal, perhaps it's time to admit his own role in making it so.

He turns and climbs the steps, takes out his keys, and suddenly Mary is before him in the doorway, clutching a pair of knitting needles and a misshapen baby bootie to her chest at the sight of him, paler than before. She abandons them on the side-table and reaches out to John, pulling him inside where it smells of cinnamon and pastry and normalcy, and it's _all wrong_. This isn't their life - it's a facade, a lie.

John slumps against the wall, closing his eyes with a shaky sigh, and Mary slides her small, skilled hand lightly down his arm.

"Take off your coat," she murmurs, tugging gently on the lapel, but John shakes his head and brings his hand to his eyes, rubbing them to fight back their inconvenient sting.

"Just -" he says, holding out his other hand, stilling her. "Just give me a moment, okay?"

Mary's eyes are red-rimmed, too; her pale lips quiver almost imperceptibly, but she nods and takes a step back, her gaze never leaving John. He takes a deep breath, two, then three - pounds the wall behind him with an impotent fist. When he's calmed enough to speak, he opens his eyes and says, "Magnussen's dead."

A tear falls from Mary's eyes and she nods, shaking more loose.

"I know," she replies, her voice breaking on the words. "I know."

John trains his terrible gaze on her; she accepts it, absorbs it, and when it's followed by John himself, clutching at her bathrobe, burying his face in the crook of her neck and shaking with silent tears, she wraps her arms around him as best she can with her swollen belly between them.

And because this is their life now - a strange hybrid of state secrets and mashed potatoes, danger and domesticity all rolled into one - Mary gives a small, tired laugh and says, "Come on. I know you haven't eaten, and there's still an hour of Christmas left. Mrs. Holmes -" Mary laughs wetly again, shaking her head. "She sent me home with Christmas dinner."

A part of John wants to gape at her in horror, but another remembers a different conversation about Christmas dinners, a lifetime ago, and what comes instead is his own choked, almost tearful guffaw. He can't eat while Sherlock -

But he can. Or must; he's made his choice - they all have - and he cannot help Sherlock now.

"Right," he says. "I'm just going to -"

John gestures with his chin in the direction of the stairs and Mary nods, turning towards the kitchen.

And if she happens to hear John's muffled sobs over the sound of the running water above, she never speaks of it.


	3. Chapter 3

**December 27, 2014**

"John."

He looks up from his chair in the front room to find Mary clutching the door jamb with one hand and her belly with the other. Her face is ashen in the dim light of a rainy day.

"What's happened?" he asks urgently, jumping to his feet to lead her to the sofa. She eases down to the cushion, gripping John's hand for support, then looks up at him with eyes clouded by a mix of frustration and terror.

"I'm bleeding," she says bluntly. John takes her wrist in his hand to measure her pulse, the doctor warring with the husband.

"How much?" he asks, swiping the back of his hand across her forehead.

"Just spotting, but -"

When Mary meets John's eyes again, the fear has gained more ground.

John rises and leaves the room, grabbing his mobile from where it sits on the table by the door. He's already speaking with the midwife when he returns, and a hot flash of ire courses through Mary's body - directed where, she can't say. She hates this bloody vulnerability, hates the weird symbiosis of pregnancy, and for one dismaying moment she utterly despises John's quietly desperate attempts to make it better when there's nothing he can do.

Mary rests her hands on either side of her belly, closes her eyes and turns her concentration inwards, breathing in and out, in and out - a slow, conscious pattern she's learnt not in birthing classes, for which she has no patience in any event, but at the feet of more clandestine mentors.

"Right," John says from the corridor after a few minutes, breaking her concentration. She opens her eyes to find him standing in the doorway with her red wool coat in hand, already wearing his own black jacket. "We're going to go for a scan, all right?"

Mary nods and begins to rise, her fingers white as they clutch the armrest of the sofa for support. It takes John but two steps to come up alongside her, slipping his arm around her to help her rise. A muscle tightens in her lower abdomen when she straightens too quickly, and Mary gasps in pain, bending slightly at the waist to ease the pull; it happens from time to time, though she's never mentioned it to John.

"Mary?" John says, a faint tremor of fear in his voice. She shakes her head, takes a deep breath, and straightens slowly.

"I'm fine, it's okay." Mary clambers into her coat, then begins the slow waddle towards the door, her hand pressed firmly to the too-tight muscle. "You okay to drive?" she asks, taking the keys off the hook on the wall and tossing them to her husband.

"Yeah, fine," John answers, though he misses the catch. He bends to swipe them off the floor and then follows her out, locking the door behind them.

When the panic has passed, when they've received a reassurance only technology can give (i _t sometimes happens in the last trimester_ , the midwife explains, _but let me know if you have cramping_ ), after they've arrived home and Mary's gone upstairs to rest - only then does she close her eyes to see dark, viscous blood blossoming over a blinding white expanse. Mary's never been sentimental, but she has an assassin's superstition, and she can't shake the feeling that this is retribution - blood taken for blood spilt.

And for the first time in a lifetime of studied remorselessness, she allows regret to come.


	4. Chapter 4

**December 27, 2014**

It could be worse, Sherlock supposes.

The last time he found himself incarcerated, he had been locked in a small, concrete bunker with no windows and only the overpowering stench of urine to keep him distracted. In contrast, this holding cell - located, if his observations are correct, somewhere just on the eastern outskirts of Bristol - is practically a luxury hotel, complete with indoor plumbing, bright, fluorescent light, painted walls, and a small, barred window up near the ceiling.

Sherlock lies on his back, one arm tucked behind his head, and gazes up at the window, allowing the rainy gloom beyond to seep into his bones. There are no puzzles here, no mysteries to solve; there's no future, and the past...

Images flit unbidden against the windows of his mind - bright butterflies of happier days when Sherlock was _alive_. Their cruel wings flash cold sea blue, ripened wheat, gunmetal grey, and he wants to reach out, lay his fingertips on them and know what the colours feel like under his skin. But there lies madness, so he turns away from their frantic beats, shutters the windows and walks away - down a distant corridor and up a decrepit staircase.

Sherlock turns on his side and curls in on himself. It's the waiting that's the worst, but he's known that since Serbia.

An hour - a day - later, he hears the sharp click of sturdy British shoes in the hallway outside. Sherlock doesn't rise; he knows who's come, and he wouldn't want to fail to live down to Mycroft's expectations. The door should creak - it's the only suitable entrance for a villain - but its well-oiled hinges rob it of sound, a quiet shuffle of feet his only indication that his brother has entered.

"You can open your eyes, Sherlock," Mycroft says drily. "I know you're awake."

Sherlock's eyes stay shut, his arms tightening around a too-thin torso, and Mycroft sighs audibly.

"You're not a schoolboy anymore, Sherlock. You've killed a man in cold blood - have you nothing to say?"

Sherlock sits bolt upright to face his brother, his bare feet falling to the chilly floor, and his eyes flash in irritation.

"Yes," he answers icily. "I'd happily do it again."

He casts a challenging glare at Mycroft, who's leaning against the wall, arms crossed, in rolled-up shirt sleeves and waistcoat, patently refusing to take the bait.

"Why?" Mycroft asks. "She's an _assassin_ \- the file on 'Mrs. Mary Watson' is a mile long, yet you would risk your own freedom, your very life, to save her? I fail to understand, Sherlock."

Sherlock says nothing, simply locks Mycroft's cold, questioning stare with his own angry eyes, then spins around on the bed to curl up again, this time facing the wall. Minutes pass in silence, the impasse broken only when Sherlock quietly echoes, "Why?"

And perhaps it's because Sherlock can't see him that there's a certain softness to Mycroft's response.

"Please, Sherlock," he quietly implores. "Why did you do this?"

Sherlock listens to the beating of his heart for a long moment, wondering absently if Mycroft can hear it, too.

"Sentiment," he eventually murmurs to the wall.

Mycroft gives a small huff.

"You can't be serious. Mary Mor -" A soft intake of air, barely perceptible. " _Oh_. Oh, I see."

Sherlock wants to shout at Mycroft not to be a moron, to accuse him of having always known and throw his 'surprise' back in his face. Sherlock wants to push Mycroft aside, bolt for the door and make a break for his freedom. He wants a life, he wants out, he wants -

"They've agreed that you're far more valuable to us in the field than incarcerated. You're set to leave for Eastern Europe within the week."

His big brother has vanished in the space of a sigh, replaced by the career bureaucrat he's had far too many dealings with. Sherlock nods in acknowledgement, then asks in a voice that will be hoarse, no matter that he tries to keep it steady, "Six months?"

Mycroft clears his throat.

"Give or take," he answers, his voice no more controlled than his brother's.

Silence thickens the air between them, and there are no words adequate enough to break it. After a time, Sherlock feels four tentative fingertips press lightly against his shoulder, then slide into his hair, gently rubbing the matted curls beneath them before vanishing altogether. He hears Mycroft's retreat in his distant footfall and clenches his arms tight around his waist, swallowing past the lump in his throat as a hot, unwanted tear rolls down his nose to splatter against the white pillowcase.

He has a future, for as long as it lasts, and it's enough. There's no hope there (not that there ever was); and so, for once, Sherlock allows himself the furtive indulgence of making his way back down that lonely corridor in his mind, throwing open the window and taking John in his arms to whirl in a kaleidoscope dance without end.


	5. Chapter 5

**April, 2025  
**

Anna is flying out of the car almost before it's come to a stop, provoking an alarmed "Hey!" from her father in the passenger's seat. By the time he and Mary are climbing out, she's already run halfway across the wide, low-tide beach towards the dark figure perched on the rocks.

"Sherlock!" Anna squeals with a wide wave of her arms; he looks up, squinting into the sunlight, his answering expression as much grimace as smile.

"Mind the crabs," he calls out, and Anna deftly dances around a small group gathered near a cluster of stones. John watches them from in front of the car as Mary comes up beside him and slips her arm in his.

"I think someone's got a bit of a crush," she murmurs, leaning close, and John lets out a soft snort.

"Good thing it's Sherlock, then," he says, a smile lighting his eyes at the sight of long arms flying open, trying in vain to keep Anna from flitting over and around his precious experiments. At his words, Mary turns to look at John, her eyes traveling quickly over clipped, windswept hair, sunshine warming the grey. His expression is relaxed in a way it would be easy - tempting - to credit to the rejuvenating effects of the seaside air, but Mary knows they could be in London and John would look the same way, as long as Sherlock was in his sights.

"What do you mean?" she asks.

Anna is squatting next to Sherlock now, peering at some small thing resting in the palm of his hand. They're well-matched in their curiosity, Sherlock's wonder only slightly less wide-eyed than that of her daughter.

John clears his throat.

"Well, it's Sherlock, isn't it? Except for Janine, I've never known him to be with anyone, and even she... " John gives Mary a wry smile, his eyes shuttered in that way they get whenever those days come up. He shrugs.

"Just, I don't think he's ever felt that way, for anyone."

Mary's long since lost any sense of surprise that John doesn't - can't, or maybe won't - see what's clear to anyone with eyes. It should reassure; John is unquestionably hers and has been since that gut-wrenching Christmas so long ago. He's made good on his promise to her, and not a day goes by that she doesn't remember - how it might have gone, how much she had to lose.

And perhaps it's because she knows exactly what she has in John that she knows equally well what Sherlock has missed all these years. Mary knows, in a way that's never even occurred to her husband, why Sherlock lasted in London only a few years more, before retreating to the white solitude of the Sussex shore. She knows why Sherlock never visits them, yet always smiles in his soft, crinkly-eyed way when they come. It's Anna, a bit, and herself, but mainly it's John, and she wishes... what, she doesn't know.

"Mmm," Mary hums noncommittally. Then she tightens her grip on John's arm and gives his hand a pat.

"Come, husband," she says. "Let's go see what he's got going today."

John nods and they head towards the shore; and only now does Sherlock stand, suddenly heedless of what havoc Anna might wreak on his delicate experiments, and smile softly at John in the distance.


	6. Chapter 6

**November, 2031**

Occasionally in the midst of a particularly boring lecture, or sometimes riding the Tube, Anna puts a decade's worth of casual training to work and deduces the people around her. At some point during fifth form she starts doing it all the time, reflexively, though one thing observation has taught her is to keep her insights to herself. She adores Sherlock and has since she was a small girl, but at sixteen she's not so naive as to believe that everyone else does as well.

Family, it turns out, is especially hard to deduce. She can't imagine they hold secrets she doesn't know, and the few she's ferreted out ( _Mum likes to be on top_ ) are things she absolutely does not want to know. But sometimes a glittering insight will come - less deduction than the sum total of a thousand small things - and so it's no surprise to her to realize, one day, that her mum is _dangerous_. She doesn't know why; it comes from out of the blue, leaving it up to her to put the pieces together; and so, like Sherlock, she quiets enough to hear and see

( _steely voice and twitchy fingers, the fiery flash of her eyes; quicksilver reflexes, all movement economical, intended. control - ferocious control, at the least expected moments_ )

Where Dad's anger is explosive, Mum's lies in wait, looking for a moment of weakness to strike out at anyone who might harm her own. Anna's thought more than once that she'd hate to get on Mum's bad side.

She spends a week, two, trying to figure a way to approach her mother, all of it laid waste when, one grey November afternoon, Mum comes into her bedroom, closes the door behind her and sits on the corner of her bed with her hands on her knees.

"You've got questions," she says bluntly, and Anna starts in surprise.

"How -"

Mum tilts her head with a knowing look.

"Go on," she says. "What do you want to know?"

She'd be nervous, but for the sparkle lurking in her mother's eyes. She's waited _years_ for this, for the chance to pick and choose just the right questions to piece together a perplexing human puzzle.

Anna licks her lips thoughtfully, then says, "You haven't always been a nurse."

Mum looks to the side with a small smile and replies, "No," and Anna knows that she's fumbled her first try.

 _Stupid!_ she thinks, squaring her shoulders for another go.

"You - your hands get restless when someone makes you angry, like... you want to throw something... no. Like... "

( _fingers flitting over forks, knives... knives, dancing lightly, precise, each one nearly independent of the other... clutching, tightening..._ )

Anna gasps.

"A gun."

Mum's eyes widen; for a moment, she looks torn between denial and ineffable pride.

"Do _not_ tell your father about this," she warns, less mother than confidante in this moment, and Anna's heart skips an elated beat.

"He doesn't know?" she whispers conspiratorially, and Mum shakes her head.

"He knows."

Mum falls into silence, her gaze drawn away - to the window, somewhere else. Eventually, she looks back at Anna, who's very nearly stunned to see tears in her eyes.

"He doesn't like it. What I was." A pause. "Neither do I."

Anna swallows, her mind flooding with questions she knows she cannot ask. Still...

"Have you -" she blurts out, but before she can finish -

"Yes," Mum replies tersely. She gives an ironic laugh. "He's taught you quite well, hasn't he?"

Anna nods silently.

"He'd be proud. He didn't figure it out himself until it was staring him in the face."

"What?"

Mum sighs. "It was another time, Anna. Another life."

Long minutes pass, the sky outside settling into a darker shade of grey. Street lamps flicker on as Anna mulls over Mum's words. One more question, long wondered, aches to be asked.

"Was it over... Dad?"

She doesn't know what she expects - laughter, maybe, it seems so far-fetched. But something in the way they both look at Dad begs the question, and the eyes Mum raises to hers are strangely soft, given the turn the conversation has taken.

Mum shakes her head.

"Not like you think. He learned, that night, that I'd do anything for your father." Her smile seems sad in the growing shadows. "A few months later, I learned the same thing."

Anna is her mum's girl, always has been. They share a sharp wit and intolerance of fools - passion and drive, and a terrifyingly fierce loyalty to the people they love. But she's her dad's girl, too; she has his acceptance and his bottomless capacity for forgiveness. His optimism, even when things seem darkest. It's that part of her, she thinks, that compels her to stand, kneel by her mum and wrap her arms around her waist in a tight embrace.

Mum's hand comes to rest on her bright blonde hair, stroking it gently in the dim twilight.


	7. Chapter 7

**May, 2036**

"Sherlock!"

Anna spots him leaning against a far wall, arms crossed and looking for all the world like he would rather be anywhere else. But she knows - by the press of his trousers and the muted shine of his shoes, by the stillness of his nervous fingers and the way he tries to smother his smile - that he's been planning this. She abandons her small group of friends and runs to him, her graduation gown billowing around her like a bat whose wings are too big for its body, and Sherlock can't help but break into a real smile at the sight.

She slows, he straightens, and when Sherlock answers the question in her eyes with a nearly imperceptible nod, she throws her arms around his reedy chest and rests her blonde head against it. A paradoxical mix of sea air and cigarettes clings to the fine wool of his suit; Anna breathes it in and tears spring to her eyes. It's the smell of childhood, of late afternoon sun shimmering on the waves, brine clinging to her skin and the ineffable ache of too-short visits and too many goodbyes.

"You came," she exclaims softly, and Sherlock nods.

"I wouldn't have missed it."

He reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a small box, then takes her hand and places it in her upturned palm. It's heavier than it looks; she bounces it in her hand a bit, getting a sense of the thing before opening it to find what seems, at first glance, to be an antique pendant on a chain. On closer examination, Anna sees that it's in fact a magnifying glass nestled in a frame of filigreed silver.

"Oh, Sherlock," she gasps, holding it up to the light. "It's beautiful - you shouldn't have."

"Of course I should," he answers. Sherlock takes it from her fingers and fastens it around her neck, centering the clasp on her cervical vertebrae, then standing back with an arch, assessing glint in his eyes. "If you insist on allowing yourself to be lured by the Pied Piper of His Majesty's Government into the murky depths of MI6, the least I can do is arm you with a talisman against technological complacency."

Anna lifts the glass in her palm and smirks.

"And this will do that? Impressive."

Sherlock laughs and Anna gives herself a tick on the mental list she keeps. 48 laughs; better than her mother and father both. Speaking of which...

"Come over and join Mum and Dad, Sherlock. We weren't sure you would come."

His smile fades slightly, eyes darting over to where her parents stand chatting with Uncle Greg and Molly. He watches them laugh over the little nothings that keep conversation going, leaning a bit in their direction as if to join them for once.

Then he seems to give himself a mental shake, looks down at Anna with affection and says softly, "Not today."

Anna at ten would have begged and wheedled until Sherlock relented. At sixteen, she might have tried - unsuccessfully - pouting or sullenness. But at twenty-two, Anna knows when it's too much; when there's more sentiment in the air than Sherlock can handle, and though it breaks her heart a bit to leave him to his loneliness, she's come to understand that it's sometimes better this way.

She gives a little sigh of disappointment, then takes Sherlock's wrinkling hand in her own smooth one and gives it a gentle squeeze.

"You were my first, you know," she says after a moment, and Sherlock's eyebrows rise in alarm.

"I'm sorry?" he stammers, and Anna laughs.

"My first love." Blushing, she raises up on tiptoes and kisses his cheek lightly. "I'll always be glad it was you."

Speechless, Sherlock stares at Anna for a time before reaching out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"You look so much like your mother," he murmurs with a soft smile, tapping his fingertip on the end of her pert nose like he used to when she was a girl. "But your eyes... "

"Like Dad," she finishes, and Sherlock gives a helpless sort of shrug.

"Beautiful," he says, his frank gaze meeting her own. The world stills around them as Anna's understanding eyes fill; then Sherlock pulls her close, kisses her gently on the forehead, and turns on his heel, walking away without a look back.


	8. Chapter 8

**October, 2037**

She's asked to meet him at the old flat, Sherlock's since ownership of 221 Baker Street passed into his hands twelve years ago. Mary's key still works, but that's the only thing that seems the same, the corridor she steps into lacking the warmth of companionship it once held. No light spills from the glass of Mrs. Hudson's door, the only sound that of her own feet as she walks over threadbare carpet to the stairs.

Mary enters 221B to find Sherlock seated in his old armchair; he looks up as she enters, and in that instant she knows he's seen everything. Sherlock gives a small, nearly inaudible gasp and begins to rise, but she waves him off and crosses to sit in John's chair, a quiet companion to Sherlock's even after all these years. The air between them is tense until Sherlock breaks the silence.

"Does John know?"

Mary shakes her head and, after a moment, a fat tear drops to her lap. Sherlock starts, then hesitantly leans forward to take her cold hands in his own. He reaches up to brush another tear from her thin cheek; she gives his hand a small squeeze, then lets out a sob.

Sherlock tries to speak, but the words seem to stick in his throat; so instead he gently cups the back of her head with his hand and pulls her close, leaning his forehead against her own to cross this bridge together. The autumnal afternoon sun casts a banked glow over the room, warming Mary by increments until she's able to pull away with an audible sniff. She wipes her nose with the side of her hand; with a gently exaggerated roll of his eyes, Sherlock twists around to take the tissue box behind him, pulls out the first two or three, then hands her a clean tissue kept clean below the first few layers of dust.

She quiets under his watchful eyes, and he says into the silence, "I never wanted this to happen."

Mary nods. "I know. You... " She gives a small shake of her head, not wanting to shine a light on that thing they never discuss. "I know."

"Have you told Anna?" he asks, and Mary gives a tired little laugh.

"Not yet, but she'll know when she sees me. I'm having coffee with her tomorrow afternoon. If I tell them together... "

"Mmm, yes," Sherlock agrees. Then he sighs.

"Perhaps Mycroft...?"

Mary shrugs.

"It might be worth a try," she says, the faintest thread of hope running through her words. "But... it's advanced, Sherlock. I didn't even know - I didn't even know." Bottled frustration rushes through her; Mary slams her hand on the arm of the chair and cries, "Why didn't I _know_?"

She stands abruptly and goes to the window, staring through the yellowed lace curtains with her arms wrapped tight around her small frame. She's stubborn and always has been, but this - it's as though she's already lost a war she hadn't known she was fighting. Mary wants to believe she can beat it, but above all she's a pragmatist. She'd heard the resignation lurking in her doctor's words as soon as he spoke of treatment, and there's a part of her that just wants to wave a white flag and make the most the time she has left. But she knows John would never go for it, that she owes him and Anna a fight to the finish, so she turns towards Sherlock with a shrug and a nod. He pulls out his phone and quietly dictates a text to his brother in the least antagonistic terms Mary's ever heard between them.

When he's pocketed it again, Mary looks away. One breath, two, each deeper than the last, until she's worked up the courage to say, "You'll have to look after him, Sherlock."

She turns back to find him standing by his chair, his expression shuttered. Mary can read him, though - in the way his eyes slide to the side, the way his hands knead the worn leather and he shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

And his words - "He loves _you_ " - are a gentle confirmation of what she's always known. Mary crosses to Sherlock and reaches out her hand to rest it on his arm. Her eyes follow her fingers as they stroke the fine wool of his suit jacket.

"If you let him," Mary says softly, eyes downturned and a quivering smile on her lips, "he'll love you, too."

She looks up to find Sherlock's eyes wide - bright and red-rimmed.

"I didn't want this for you. I didn't _want_ this," he says, his childlike insistence belying his age. He radiates the frustration of a thousand thwarted ideas, helpless in the face of her wretched mortality. Wordlessly, Mary steps close to Sherlock, tucking her greying head under his chin as he enfolds her in his embrace.

"I know," she whispers, tightening her arms around him. "Neither did I."


	9. Chapter 9

**March, 2038**

In the end, it's a matter of months, not years.

John's first reaction to the news is to clench his fists, aching to beat cold terror away one brutal punch at a time. He just barely channels his need to do something into a barrage of questions aimed squarely at Mary's doctor; even John realizes his outdated medical training is no match for the specialist he will never know was retained at Sherlock's request.

Once armed with a plan for treatment, John launches a full-frontal assault on the cancer. Every medication is administered with precision, every therapy pursued. They keep up appearances for themselves as much as anyone, grasping at slowly deflating normalcy until the day Mary climbs the stairs and slips into bed, never to descend on her own again. John becomes a wakeful presence at her side, ready to tend to her slightest need. It's a sight that always makes Mary smile, wan in the thin light that seeps through closed curtains.

Until the February day that dawns cold and bleak, when Mary's tired eyes open to find John's restless gaze across the pillow they share and she says, simply, "No more." He hears the words, but at first they make no sense. They're just that - words, arbitrary sounds with a force that sucks the air from his lungs. A breathless, aching eternity passes in the space of a moment; then, unblinking and bleary-eyed, John reaches out to cup Mary's face with his wrinkling hand, swipes his thumb over her wet cheek and echoes, "No more."

From there it's quick, and years of experience tell him he should be grateful. He is, intellectually; but what lingers for months after the machines finally fall silent is the way she disappeared in the space of a missed breath: his wife one moment, and in the next, cold and grey and gone.

Annie is with him when they take Mary away, clutching his hand like the little girl she once had been. The subsequent outpouring of awkward affection makes them miss her even more. They laugh together over the unseemly condolence gift of indescribably delicious biscuits, then cry for lack of what would surely have been Mary's own wry asides about the surreality of the whole thing. The day of the funeral dawns bright and beautiful, evoking memories of another such day, long ago, when John and Mary (and Annie, as Sherlock announced) had stood together and made vows that withstood the very worst of them. Sherlock's there again, too, but he and John barely speak, separated by a sea of people and years of growing distance. John spots him once before he leaves the church - a too-thin figure in the distance, head bowed and fingers resting on Mary's headstone. He wants to know what Sherlock might have to say to her, but Annie is tugging his sleeve and pulling him into the waiting sedan, a frown on her face as she follows John's gaze.

Days pass, and the hole in the world Mary has left behind begins to overflow with the detritus of her life: mass-produced, made-in-China - clutter turned poignant by the echo of her touch. Her best jewelry goes to Annie, her clothes to Oxfam, and John regrets neither. It's the grotty Tesco tea-towel he wants, a perpetual martyr to Mary's baking. He boxes up the vases that litter the sitting room shelves, never once batting an eye; the keys that dangle, still, on the hook by the door - that's what draws John's empty gaze.

Three weeks on and he still sees Mary just around the corner, an always-fleeting shadow on the stairs. At night, bleary-eyed and bathed in the flicker of the TV, John wonders if that's what ghosts are - mists of a past unrelinquished. He's mourned before, and so deeply he'd thought he might never recover. But it's different this time. Sherlock had given his life new purpose only to snatch it away before he'd barely known what he'd had. The life he'd had with Mary, though, had been built of shared memories and plans that she took with her, leaving John bereft of both past and future, set adrift on a sea with no land in sight.


	10. Chapter 10

**May, 2038**

Annie arrives in her smart red Mini every other Saturday to go with John to the cemetery; they've been four times now, and it never seems to get any easier. The bare mound of dirt that had covered Mary's grave has grown grassy with encroaching summer, but her dove grey headstone remains as unblemished as the day they laid her to rest, lending the place a paradoxical sort of timelessness.

 _Mary Elizabeth Watson_  
 _October 19, 1972 - March 26, 2038_  
 _Never a Dull Moment_

John's eyes settle on the words he chose as Annie bends down to pull up a stray weed or two. He second-guesses himself every time they come, wondering if Mary would have liked the epitaph. He thinks so; more than that, it's a fair summation of the twenty-four years they were married. Even if they'd grown more settled and domestic over time, Mary had always surprised him in one way or another - always kept John on his toes and wondering just how well he really knew her.

As is his habit, John reaches out to lay his hand on the headstone. It's smooth and cool to the touch, grounding him where his mind is wont to wander. He closes his eyes, concentrating on the gentle wind that rustles the leaves and the cheerful, chatty birds that remind him of Mrs. Hudson, gone these thirteen years. On a different day in another life she had accompanied him to another cemetery, angry enough for them both; now, time and impossibility overcome, John chuckles softly at the memory.

When, after a moment, he opens his eyes, they catch on a bit of metal glinting in the sun. John uses the headstone for support to lean over and pull it out of the dirt, turning it in his fingers. The brass bullet is small and slightly dented, full metal jacket.

"What've you got there?" Annie asks, coming up alongside him, and John holds it out for her to see.

"Is that -" she gasps, and he nods.

"A bullet."

"Where did it come from?"

John shakes his head, frowning.

"It was on the ground behind Mum's headstone."

"What? Why?"

"No idea."

He turns it slowly in his fingers, then notices that some of the scratches don't seem quite like the others.

"Wait a minute," John says, pulling his glasses from his shirt pocket. He knows he should wear them all the time, for all that he's becoming dependent on the bloody things. But there are some things he's not ready to concede just yet, and his slowly deteriorating eyesight is very near the top of that list. He puts them on and squints through the lenses at a cluster of bright scratches on the bullet's surface.

"There's something written here," he says and, as he tries to make it out, Annie holds out her hand.

"Here, let me see."

John looks up with a scowl. "I'd have had it in a minute," he mutters, handing it over. Annie takes it and walks over to a patch of sunlight to have a closer look.

"It says 'for'… 'for'… something." She looks up, her eyes darting around as she considers, then rummages through her handbag until she produces the small magnifying glass Sherlock had given her as a graduation present. She holds the bullet up to the lens, turning it as she reads.

"For… " she repeats softly, then suddenly exclaims, "You! 'For you'!"

She looks up at John, her eyes glittering with this small success; but her face quickly clouds in puzzlement, mirroring John's own confusion.

"'For you'? What does it mean?"

John covers his mouth with his hand, rubbing at his greying scruff.

"For you," he murmurs. "'For you'… but from who? Who would have left something like this on your mother's grave?"

"Maybe it was just some kids," Annie muses. "Or someone she -"

Their eyes meet, and in that instant John realises what neither Mary nor Annie had ever confessed.

"You knew," he says, his voice a guarded, gravelly monotone. Annie's eyes grow wide, but she nods nonetheless.

"I knew."

John lets out an explosive sigh, crosses his arms across his chest and looks down at Mary's grave, his gaze hazy and unfixed until the bits of soil the grass has missed come into focus.

"How long?" he asks eventually, and Annie clears her throat.

"Six years? Mum -" John lifts his head, pinning her with an angry glare he's never turned on his daughter before. "She didn't tell me."

"No?"

"It was - that is, I guessed it."

The huff John lets out might be a laugh, but for the unhappy set of his mouth.

"You guessed it."

Her eyes slide to the side.

"Deduced," she amends with a tilt of her head. "I, uh, deduced it. For practice."

When she looks back at John, he's nodding to himself, a small, tight smile playing across his lips.

"You deduced it," he repeats softly. "Of course you did. Why is it that lies and the 'science of deduction' always seem to go hand in hand where I'm concerned?"

"I never lied," Annie insists, and John nods tightly.

"No, you didn't. Everyone else… " A pause; then John gives himself a mental shake, squares his shoulders, and smiles, abashed, at Annie.

"Never mind," he says. "It's good you know - about Mary - Mum. You should. You have a right."

He walks over to Annie and gives her a fatherly pat on the shoulder.

"Come on," John says. "It's getting late."

Annie nods, wrapping her dad in a gentle hug. A moment's lull, then she returns the bullet to John, who slips it into the pocket of his trousers. They walk silently across the lawn together, the sinking sun casting long shadows around them. Each is lost in their own thoughts, John mired in a tangled undergrowth of memories and emotions he's kept at bay for years. The still-fresh hurt of Sherlock's deception, and Mary's; the pain of too many bedside vigils. The late-term preeclampsia that very nearly took Mary and Annie both; the cancer that did take Mary in the end. The bullet -

"Oh, God."

John halts in his tracks - thrusts a hand into his pocket and pulls it back out.

"Dad?"

Annie turns to find John staring at the bullet again. He closes his fist around it, the tips of his pink fingers tinged white, and meets her eyes with a look she cannot read.

"Sherlock."


	11. Chapter 11

Annie may have known what Mary once was, but it takes only a quick Costa conversation for John to realise there are substantial gaps in her understanding. She's managed to guess parts of the whole from hints Mary had dropped, but they don't prepare her for the knowledge that the bullet John's placed on the table between them very nearly changed the course of her life.

"It was a long time," he says, eyes trained on the coffee cup before him. "A _very_ long time, before I was able to speak to her again. After." John picks the bullet up and examines it, turning it in his fingers before enclosing it his fist. "She'd -"

John inhales; exhales and inhales again. "But she was my wife, I loved her and we were having a baby."

He spares a fond glance for Annie, then turns his gaze to the window.

"And he lived," John says softly, trusting her to hear the _almosts_ and _ifs_ , to know things would have gone very differently had he not.

They sit in silence. John knows he's making little sense; he can see confusion seeping into Annie's understanding eyes between the fits and starts of his story. But even these few words are enough to set his hands shaking, his heart beating twice as fast as before. This is the first he's spoken of those days in years. His and Sherlock's friendship had endured, a bit worse for wear, but they had closed the door on a tumultuous past John's never allowed himself to open.

Afternoon slowly gives way to evening. Eventually, John smiles, bleary-eyed, at Annie; swallows and says, "Without your mother, I wouldn't have survived. The day we met -" a dry snort "- the day I met Sherlock -"

And, without warning, John's eyes, his sinuses, everything suddenly _stings_. He remembers - too late - why he doesn't ( _can't_ ) speak of this. He pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut; stands and mumbles something about the toilet as he hastens to the lavatory in the back of the shop. Only when he's behind a locked door does John bend, hands on his knees, and gasp for breath. Alone, he thinks vaguely - then as now. She wasn't supposed to leave him like this; _the problems of your future_ , he'd said; only, what future now?

Emotions loosened by their cryptic conversation, John heaves noisily, his hoarse voice cracking as he fights the sobs that come for the first time since Mary's death. He wrestles with himself to bring them under control, breathing in fetid air with great, gasping gulps, but in the end, it takes a soft knock on the door and Annie's gentle, "Dad?" to bring John around. He clears his throat, and when he trusts his voice not to break, he calls out, "Yeah - coming. I'll be out in a minute."

John straightens and braces himself against the lavatory door with one hand, only then recalling the object he still holds in the other. He lifts his palm to stare at the small bit of brass and focuses on those two words - _for you, for you_ \- a mantra that pulls him back to the present. It's strange, he thinks; Sherlock had always got on with Mary, thick as thieves before things went pear-shaped, and John can't imagine anything sinister behind the message. But, if not that - some unfathomable darkness between them Mary's taken to the grave - then what?

He returns the bullet to his pocket, patting it through the fabric of his trousers, then splashes some water on his face and dries it off, staring at himself in the mirror. Only his reddened eyes give him away, and there's nothing he can do about that. With military precision, John takes a moment to center himself, straightening his back and squaring his shoulders as he's always done in times of crisis. When he rejoins Annie, it's with a smile he hopes is reassuring.

"You okay?" she asks, reaching out across the table to rest her hand on his arm. He covers it with his own and nods.

"Fine. It's just - I don't find it easy, talking about all this. And Mum… " John tilts his head a bit to the side, a watery smile on his face. "I miss her every single day."

Annie's lips quiver, and her blue eyes fill with tears that seem always to be too quick to come.

"Me, too."

* * *

A light rain is falling when Annie pulls up to the kerb. She puts on the emergency brake and turns to her father, who's busy wrestling with his fussy folding umbrella.

"What are you going to do?" she asks. John looks up with a frown.

"About what?" he says, distracted, and Annie gapes exaggeratedly, waving a hand in the direction of his trouser pockets.

"About the - the thing. The bullet."

"Oh," John replies, reaching down to feel for it again. "I dunno. Might text Sherlock, or… yeah. No idea."

Annie glances out the window behind John, her eyes tracing the steps up to the terraced house she's always called home. When she looks back at him, there's a glint in her expression that's been missing for months.

"What if," she says slowly. "You went to see Sherlock? Out in Sussex? Hasn't it been awhile since you were there?"

If John notices the way his breathing picks up, he gives no sign of it. Instead, he runs his thumb over the indentation the bullet makes in his trousers, the words - _for you_ \- flitting through his mind again.

"He's probably busy," John equivocates, hating, always, to be the one who breaks their long silences. Annie rolls her eyes.

"You know he isn't," she replies. "Or, not with anything that won't keep for a visit from you."

John imagines Sherlock in Sussex, a dark, dramatic reed of a man standing windblown against a backdrop of grey clouds and steel-blue sea.

He shrugs.

"Maybe," John says. "I might."


	12. Chapter 12

The bullet ends up gathering dust in the small porcelain dish where Mary had kept her earrings.

One month becomes two, becomes a season of dull sunshine and days with no distractions that's outlived its welcome long before it's over. At first, John makes an effort to get out of the house, to socialize with the few people he calls friends. But their well-intended sympathy grates on his nerves, until he finds himself wanting to tell them _exactly_ how he feels.

 _Angry_ , he would say. _Devastated_. _Gutted_. _Heartbroken_.

 _Alone_.

A dozen different words that all mean the same thing; and as the monotonous months pass, John slowly slips below the surface of normality and into murkier waters. His thoughts get trapped in eddies of mortality and despair, pulling him into a quicksand darkness that deepens the more he struggles. He goes through the motions, pulls himself from bed every morning to do the things he's supposed to do, but only John knows the careful calculus that goes into his untroubled facade. He's learnt he can go a full four days without showering before its effects are noticeable, that people can't tell he's been wearing the same clothes for two (three, if his lab coat is in play). He sates himself on cold, canned veg, then naps on the sofa at night before dragging himself to bed. An undifferentiated slide from light to dark, day in and out - ceaseless, until the late summer Sunday when Annie arrives to find him unshaven and in bed in the early afternoon.

She stands in the doorway to the bedroom he and Mary had shared, the weight of her gaze just one more burden John is unable to bear. He says nothing and hopes she'll do the same; but she's his daughter and she cares, and isn't that how they raised her?

"Have you eaten?" Annie asks, her words leaden in the silence. John hears her approaching footsteps and closes his eyes. She won't be fooled, but he'll save himself her shock at his appearance.

 _Or not_ , he thinks when he hears her soft gasp.

"Oh, Dad," she says, sitting gingerly on the edge of the bed and laying a gentle hand on his arm. "I should have… "

Nothing, he tells her, though only in his mind. There's nothing she could have done - it's simply how it is. John feels a trickle of heat slide over the bridge of his nose as he lies there on his side - he knows he's crying, but he can't seem to muster the strength to care. He'd tell her he has days like this, but they're not all the same. He'll be fine, John would say, if only the words would come.

Annie's hand slides over the the duvet, stroking the arm underneath as though calming a child. The irony doesn't escape him; he remembers long nights by Mary's side, taking turns soothing the baby until exhaustion had finally accomplished what neither of them could. Then he remembers other nights with Mary, and John turns his head and buries it in his pillow, the trickle a hot, sudden river he can't seem to dam.

"Dad, why don't you speak to the doctor?" Annie pleads softly, resurrecting a frequent refrain. "Medication could help - you've prescribed it to patients yourself."

John breathes into the pillow, a deliberate in and out that slowly quells his tears. He's had this conversation with himself a dozen times before; it never stops feeling like failure.

He stirs. Annie removes her hand and he clambers slowly to lean on his elbow, picks up his phone and squints to read the time.

"Go make us a cuppa," John says, his voice gravelly with disuse. Annie's lips tighten ( _like Mary_ ), but she gives his arm a quick squeeze and goes downstairs to the kitchen. Eventually, John rises and turns to sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, listening to the muffled sound of children playing next door. They're a nice family - kids are polite, parents unobtrusive - but John knows all of this awaits them, too. They're happy now; it doesn't last.

Another sigh, deep and disgusted with himself for the melodramatic turn of this thoughts. Then John rubs his eyes, puts on his glasses and bathrobe, and makes his way down to Annie.

* * *

 **September, 2038**

It's gone eight o'clock on a chilly evening, and John's still filling out paperwork at his desk. He'd never realised how good he'd had it under the NHS until it had been abolished back in the 20s. Now it's more paper in exchange for fewer and fewer resources, and he's been thinking lately it's time to get out before he loses faith altogether.

The sound of the door opening breaks the after-hours silence. _Mary_ , John thinks instinctively; she'd been the only one left most evenings, waiting until John had finished for them to go home together.

He whips around to find Sherlock blowing into his office, a blustery cyclone of activity. Without a glance at John, Sherlock pulls his jacket from the hook by the door and holds it out to him.

"Here," he says, his voice as sonorous as ever. "Put this on and -" he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a small, silver bubble pack. "Take one of these."

John's mouth falls open in the way it always seems to when Sherlock's involved. He spares a glance at the scattered papers on his desk, then stands and takes the jacket.

"What's that?" he asks, pulling it on as he juts his chin in the direction of Sherlock's hand.

"Zyban," Sherlock says with a small, lopsided smile. "You're quitting smoking."

"I don't smoke," John retorts.

"I'm quitting smoking, then. By proxy."

John takes the packet. He knows its off-label use.

After a moment spent warring with himself, he grumbles, "I don't need this." His words bring Sherlock to a halt, meeting John's bloodshot eyes for the first time since he arrived.

"You do," he says, glancing down at the packet and back up at John. A moment later, he adds, "Please."

Perhaps it's Sherlock's plaintiveness, the tinge of sadness around his eyes. It's a rare enough sight that it snags on John's fleeting attention, and he finds himself pushing a small, white pill through the foil, taking the proffered paper cup of water, and swallowing the medication.

"Is that all?" he asks irritably, expecting some flash of Sherlock's impatience in response. Instead, Sherlock shakes his head, the still-thick waves of his lightly greyed hair bouncing with the movement. If John didn't know any better, he'd say Sherlock was nervous.

"Not... quite," Sherlock replies. "I've packed a bag. You're coming home with me."

John's eyebrows rise, almost of their own volition.

"Like hell I am," he says; but inside he's torn between familiar tears and drunken, giddy laughter. Sherlock pins John with his sharp gaze, the old sensation of being deduced pulling strange delight even closer to the surface.

After a moment, Sherlock rolls his eyes.

"Of course you are," he says. "It's all been arranged."

John's threatened laughter turns quicksilver ire.

"I have responsibilities here, Sherlock," he says. "I can't just drop them for a holiday."

"A long weekend," Sherlock counters with a tilt of his head. Then he bites his lip, worrying it with his teeth before quietly continuing, "I'm… concerned."

Suddenly, overwhelmingly exhausted - with work, and mourning, and the terrible burden of life - John lets pretence fall. He and Sherlock stare at one another, John's gaze hollowing out until he hits the bottom of his despair. He closes his eyes and huffs out thin breath, once, then twice, seeking the equilibrium that's abandoned him.

"All right," he says after a moment. "I'll come."


	13. Chapter 13

Glancing over at Sherlock, his still-slender fingers deft on the steering wheel, John realises he's probably deleted a few things himself over the years. He barely has any memory of Sherlock even driving a car, much less owning one.

The A21 is all but deserted this time of night. The only sights are the silhouettes of trees against a moonlit sky; the only light, the otherworldly glow of the dashboard. Quiet music fills the small cabin, a piano piece John vaguely recalls from decades ago. It's something Sherlock had often listened to with the same concentration he'd given his cases, hands steepled under his chin as its notes danced in the air.

They've barely said two words to one another since they left the clinic some fifty minutes ago, and John's not quite sure what he's even doing here. But he has put two and two together, only now voicing his suspicion.

"It was Annie."

"Not the way you think," Sherlock replies smoothly. "She merely texted that she was concerned about you and asked if I had any suggestions. I surmised the rest."

"Of course you did." The retort rises to John's tongue almost reflexively, a vanguard of resentments he thought he'd long since buried. Perhaps they'd just been biding their time.

"After all these years, you're still going around behind my back, still keeping me in the dark 'for my own good'." Anger like a tidal wave swells against his crumbling defences, and John gives in to it without a fight. "First you, then Mary. Now Annie. It's good to know the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree."

Sherlock's hands tighten at the words.

"Don't," he says with a hint of a snarl. "She was worried about you - and rightly so. You look like hell."

"Well ta for that."

"I mean it, John." Sherlock doesn't take his eyes from the road, but John feels the weight of his attention nonetheless. "When did you last sleep more than a few hours?"

"That's rich, coming from you," John retorts. "And since when do you care, anyway?"

It's many more miles down the road before Sherlock breaks the silence; even then, his voice barely rises above a whisper.

"I always care."

John's expression hardens. "You've got a funny way of showing it. I haven't heard from you in months. Not since -"

He turns his eyes to the window. The moon is well past its zenith, the sky around it a still, sepulchral grey.

"No," Sherlock agrees quietly. "I should have... called, or - something."

"Or something," John echoes under his breath.

Vibrant piano has, at some point, given way to a slow, swelling melody that ebbs and flows like the tide. John remembers it from somewhere… a film, perhaps. Something he'd liked, once upon a time. It doesn't seem at all like the kind of thing Sherlock would go for, but John, glancing to the right, sees him smile all the same. The music is wistful and unabashedly romantic; when it ends, its last notes fade, dreamlike, into silence.

"I miss her, too," Sherlock says, and John closes his eyes with a tired smile.

"You two always did get on," he replies. "I sometimes think you knew her better than me."

"Knew?" Sherlock echoes. "No. Understood, perhaps."

"It was always one or the other with you. Like one of those science fiction stories - never both together. Like you both couldn't exist in the same space without the universe collapsing in some kind of… "

"Paradox," Sherlock finishes. "No, we'd have to have been the same person for that."

"It sometimes seemed like you were."

Sherlock shakes his head. "We were alike in many ways," he says, an indefinable edge in his voice. "But we were never the same. Least of all to you."

 _What's that supposed to mean?_

The words are on the tip of John's tongue, but he keeps them to himself. He's saved from answering, at any rate, when they turn down a narrow, pebbled road John has no recollection of having ever traveled before.

"You're not living in the village anymore?" he asks. Sherlock shakes his head.

"I bought this place a couple of years ago." He glances over at John with a crooked smile. "Sixty seemed a bit old to be living on someone else's rented property."

They pull up to a compact cottage. John can't make out much in the dark, but he catches a glimpse in the headlights of whitewashed wood, mortar and stone. They climb out of the car, and while Sherlock takes his bag from the boot, John stretches his aching legs. A salty breeze ruffles his hair; he breathes it deep, as though coming up for air for the first time in an age.

"You've moved to the sea," John says banally to Sherlock, who hands him his bag, their fingers brushing nearly unnoticed.

"It's quiet," he explains. "But not… too quiet."

It's a need John understands only too well.

He looks down at the bag he now holds and hefts it a bit. "There's more than a long weekend here, Sherlock."

Sherlock shrugs, then sets off towards the house. John, following on his heels, can only just make out his words over the distant roar of the ocean.

"Everything's been taken care of."

He climbs the three wooden steps to a modest verandah, keys in hand, then turns to look down at John.

"Please," he says. "Just… stay. For awhile."

John turns on the step, looking out into the unfathomable darkness. He glances up, and his eyes inexplicably fill at the sight of a thousand distant stars stretched across the sky. Suddenly London - tight and too close - is the last place he wants to be.

"For awhile," John says.

Sherlock nods, then turns and opens the door, leading him inside.


	14. Chapter 14

John wakes to the feel of cool air and warm bed, vaguely amazed he's slept through the night with no interruptions. He remembers Sherlock offering tea the night before, but it's been years since John's been able to drink anything caffeinated in the evenings. He'd just excused himself with a quiet 'goodnight' and retreated to the bedroom Sherlock had shown him, sinking into sleep almost before his head hit the pillow.

The house is silent. John assumes Sherlock has gone off somewhere, and a quick glance out the window at the empty driveway confirms it. Rubbing his eyes, he reaches over to a weathered wood nightstand, puts on his glasses and picks up his phone. There are no waiting messages, but he has a few of his own to send. He never had got the hang of typing on a laptop, but now his thumbs fly over the small digital keyboard.

 _To: Annie_  
 _From: Dad_

 _Have been kidnapped by Sherlock. No thanks to you._

He hits send and receives a reply while he's in the midst of typing out a longer email.

 _To: Dad_  
 _From: Annie_

 _Good for him. I have no regrets._

John chuckles to himself, shaking his head with a bemused smile, then returns his attention to the email.

 _To: Neseem Quraishi M.D. quraishin_  
 _From: John Watson M.D. watsonjh5_

 _Subject: Mea culpa_

 _Naz -_

 _You might have been contacted by a friend of mine who's taken it on himself to get me out of the city for a few days. Apologies for anything he might have said or done - he's not the best with people. I hope this doesn't cause too much inconvenience - I was reluctant to come, but it might be for the best right now. I should be back within the week. Let me know if you need me back sooner._

 _\- John_

Once the email is sent, John sets to pulling himself out of his too-comfortable bed. The antique honeycomb quilt that overlays it is neither too heavy nor too light, and it takes some effort not to slip back between softened sheets and drift back to sleep. He knows it would be easy to give the day over to blanketed unconsciousness, retreating from the world without so much as a sigh. But the day is grey - a cosy, undemanding morning that gives John the strength to throw back the warm covers with a soft huff. Rising, he turns to sit on the side of the bed; his feet just barely brush the smooth wood floorboards, and with his white t-shirt and striped boxers, tousled hair and alert expression, he almost resembles the boy he was some fifty years ago.

John looks out at the white-capped waters just beyond his window, framed on both sides by craggy rocks and rough shrubbery. An early autumnal chill is kept at bay by the warmth of the small cottage, easing - if not erasing - a tightness he's carried for months. He's standing on the cusp of something _different_ and, knowing it, chooses to stand and see what Sherlock has packed for him in his more-than-a-weekend bag.

What his expectations are, John can't say; he's surprised nonetheless to find the things he might have packed himself: a warm, worn jumper and the cranberry-coloured cardigan he's owned since his Baker Street days; four checked shirts and two pairs of jeans. Boxers and socks, toiletries and his bottle of blood pressure medication from the nightstand. In all, a prosaic smattering of John's belongings that seems incongruous with Sherlock's own larger-than-life personality. He pulls the toiletries from his bag, wondering what conclusions Sherlock must have reached from the evidence of his ordinariness, and goes into the bathroom across the hall.

There, he's hit with a disorienting wave of recognition.

Sherlock's things are painstakingly arranged on the right-hand side of the wide wash basin, as they always had been when John had lived at 221B. In those days, Sherlock had had particular ideas about organisational efficiency in the bathroom - something about right and left-handedness, the theory of which had mostly eluded an admittedly uninterested John. All he knew was his own things went on the left - where he lays them now, lining them up neatly as he always had done, then standing back to appreciate their strange symmetry. It strikes John that, however unfamiliar the house is may be, he has a place here; for however long it lasts, he's not alone.

Once he's dressed, John ventures out to the bright front room. Instead of two armchairs flanking the stone fireplace, there's only a long leather sofa placed opposite, the space between broken up by a low wood table. Muted light filters through the wide windows on either side of the room, warmed by two lamps Sherlock's left on. Some papers, Sherlock's laptop, and an empty mug are all that suggest he's been here this morning and, without thinking, John picks up the mug and takes it over to the kitchen, separated from the main room by only a plain dining table. He finds the water for tea already boiled and kept hot in the electric kettle on the counter, as well as a clean mug, tea bag, and small foil packet waiting for him with a note in Sherlock's handwriting.

 _"Take one with food. You don't want to start smoking again."_

John snorts, but he pops a slice of bread in the toaster and takes the pill all the same. As he's waiting for his tea to steep, his phone buzzes.

 _To: John Watson M.D. watsonjh5_  
 _From: Neseem Quraishi M.D. quraishin_

 _Subject: RE: Mea culpa_

 _John -_

 _It's not a problem. I've been saying for weeks you needed to get away, so please take your time there and don't rush back. Your friend was fine - do please thank him for going so far as to arrange a replacement while you're away. You can imagine my surprise when I came in this morning to find Alain Vernet flirting with Lizzy in the waiting room!_

 _Your friend,_

 _Naz_

Just before he's finished reading, the sound of the front door opening rouses John's attention, and he turns a gaping face to Sherlock.

"You know Alain Vernet?" he asks without preamble. Sherlock, bright-eyed and ruddy from the crisp air, walks over to the dining table and sets down a couple of cloth carrier bags.

"Yes," he answers - not nearly enough for John.

"How? He's - _how_?"

Sherlock shrugs, but he can't contain the slight smile tugging at his lips.

"Cousin, on Mummy's side," he explains cryptically, and John lets out a disbelieving laugh.

"Cousin?" he echoes. "Alain Vernet - _the_ Alain Vernet, the one who made it possible to safely use nanotechnology in the treatment of pulmonary embolisms - _that_ Alain Vernet - he's your _cousin_?"

"Yes?" Sherlock says slowly. John gapes a moment more, before a high, happy laugh bubbles up from inside him.

"And now -" he goes on. "Now -"

"Now?" Sherlock asks, his own eyes beginning to crinkle in sympathetic mirth.

" _Now_ -" John says, laughter turning to high, helpless giggles, "Alain Vernet - _the Nobel Prize winner_ \- is - is treating _piles_ -"

Sherlock is chuckling now, too, a wide grin lighting his face.

"- in a neighborhood clinic in _Morden_!"

They both burst into laughter, Sherlock nodding soundlessly while John doubles over, hands braced on his knees.

"He -" Sherlock gets out between giggles. "He said - he said he could _use the change of scenery_!"

This precipitates a another wave of laughter lasting a minute or two more.

There's still a smile on John's face after it's faded, and he plops down at the table with his cooling tea, wiping tears from his cheeks.

"But seriously, Sherlock," he says, eyes alight. "Why would he agree to such a thing? Not that I'm not grateful, but… "

Sherlock turns to look at John from where he's putting the shopping away. His eyes flit over John's laugh-lined face, his relaxed posture, and some of his own alertness seems to drain away.

"I may have agreed to play the violin at his daughter's wedding next summer."

John lets out a startled laugh, shaking his head.

"You needn't have done it, Sherlock," he scolds gently, eyes lowered to the mug in his hands.

"Don't be absurd," Sherlock scoffs. "I live for entertaining the pretentious progeny of the French elite."

John smiles, lifting his gaze to find Sherlock returning the look.

"And getting Mycroft to foot the bill."


	15. Chapter 15

John leans back in the weathered chair on Sherlock's verandah. The overcast morning has given way to afternoon sun, warming him against encroaching cold. He's been watching Sherlock tend to his hives - four, perched on white wooden stands - and each movement, each gentle gesture, drives home a realisation that the Sherlock of John's memories is a man frozen in the past.

Watching him now - the intricate work, and the attention Sherlock gives it - puts John in mind of long-ago experiments at 221B. Ironically, the venomous bees seem to him a more benign obsession than the body parts of old - still dangerous, but not pathologically so. Or maybe it's the robust wildlife surrounding Sherlock that's so different, a stark contrast to the death that had always seemed to follow in his wake. In the fridge and at the morgue; at crime scenes - on the pavement at John's feet.

John suddenly screws up his mouth and blinks, wrinkling his nose to dispel an painful tingle as his gaze shifts to the heathery hills.

John hasn't thought about that day since Sherlock said goodbye on an airfield so many years ago - almost as if he'd deleted it. Yes, Sherlock had returned, and after a time they'd all been able to resume their lives. Or begin, in John's case; by then he'd had a wife and a baby, and he'd been determined to make a fresh go of things, for all their sakes. And if that meant that he no longer had as much time for Sherlock's cases ( _for Sherlock_ , John's mind whispers), then that was a price he'd been willing to pay.

Mary had always understood Sherlock best. Theirs had been less open amity than friendly détente, but following Mary's one, seismic betrayal, she had shown a special care where Sherlock was concerned. When John might have been tempted to succumb to the crushing pressure of too many half-truths and outright lies ( _stillborn possibilities and ineffable regrets_ ), Mary was there to suggest a family drive to Sussex or a dinner in the city. On the few, dwindling occasions when Sherlock had reached out for John's help on a case while he still lived in London, Mary had eased the way with book clubs and girls' nights in.

It might have been Sherlock who had come for him, but it was Mary who had ensured John still knew him when he came.

He glances back at Sherlock, now standing at a distance from the hives and looking out over the wide expanse of the sea. His hood is off, the salt-and-pepper waves of his hair sun-warmed and dishevelled by the breeze. To John, it's a heroic stance - Master of All He Surveys - but he's always been inclined to think of Sherlock that way. Now, he wonders what Mary would have seen - how Sherlock is massaging the joints of his right hand, perhaps. The slight slump of his shoulders, or the way he stands there a beat too long - tired, maybe, or steeling himself for… what, John doesn't know.

After a time, Sherlock turns and looks up at John. He goes into the nearby shed, emerging a few minutes later without his beekeeping gear, then climbs the grassy slope back to the cottage. Easing himself down on the highest of three worn steps, he leans back against the banister and stretches out one denimed leg, bending the other to rest an arm on his knee. Sherlock is facing the hills, staring thoughtfully at some fixed point in the distance; this close, and seeing him with newly observant eyes, John's startled by how young he still looks. It's not so much signs of age, of which there are several, but a kind of fresh-faced wonder that takes John back years - decades, to when they'd first met, and Sherlock had been almost childlike in his perverse pleasures.

If the perversity remains, it's mellowed into something less flamboyantly exuberant. There's a softness in Sherlock's clear gaze that's new to John, and his own tension further seeps from him in unconscious response. He thinks of the cottage - not feminine, but airier than 221B ever had been; of the old quilt on the bed in which he awoke. The framed picture of Annie in her graduation gown on the mantle, next to the old one of Mary and himself from their wedding. Sherlock's parents, outside the old house, and Mrs. Hudson in her later years; small signifiers of a sentiment John had not expected, nor scarcely even knew was there. Sherlock has her old tea set now, the one with the butterflies that she'd slammed down when -

"Sherlock," John says abruptly. "Can I ask you a question?"

Without moving his head, Sherlock turns his eyes up to look at John and gives a small shrug.

"Why did you move here?"

Sherlock's eyebrows rise in an expression so like Mycroft that John has to stifle a small laugh.

"It made sense. I'd been paying far too much to my landlord, for far less space, and I wanted to try my hand at beekeeping. It seemed the right time."

John frowns.

"I don't mean here. I mean, why'd you leave London? I thought you loved it there."

Sherlock's eyes snap to John's, breaking away just before John can fully register the sudden, strange intensity of his look.

"Ah, that," he says, a light flush rising to his cheeks. He tilts his head slightly, closes his eyes for a moment and replies, "I was lonely."

John sits forward in his chair, frown deepening as his eyes dart over the empty countryside and desolate sea.

"How could you possibly be _less_ lonely here?"

Sherlock rubs the joints and fingers of his right hand in silence, his gaze now fixed on John's shoes. A mournful look John doesn't like falls over his face, the blush there giving way to blue paleness.

"You always buy the same shoes," Sherlock murmurs. "For years now - always the same. Small changes in styling are a concession to time, but they've always pretty much looked just. like. this."

He stretches out both legs now, and John notices that Sherlock's own Italian leather of old has given way to sturdy brogue boots. Another chink in the armour of The Sherlock Holmes.

After a moment, Sherlock climbs to his feet and up the steps, planting his arms on the verandah railing and leaning out over it as he looks up at the almost-twilight sky. John rises to join him, settling back against the railing with his arms crossed and looking expectantly up at him over his glasses. Sherlock glances back, lets out a short, rueful laugh and shakes his head. Then he straightens and meets John's steady gaze with a frank openness John's only ever seen once before.

"I could never be as lonely here as I was in London without you."

John's eyes widen at the words, but before he can mobilise any kind of response, Sherlock has already turned towards the front door.

"I've got spaghetti bolognese," he says, as though they'd been talking of dinner all along. "If that's alright with you?"

John nods, then clears his throat.

"Fine," he says. "Good."


	16. Chapter 16

While Sherlock prepares dinner, John settles at the dining table to go over some of the paperwork he'd grabbed on the way out of the clinic. Light conversation sees them through the meal, both hewing to the safest of subjects: Molly and Greg's ever-growing family, and the likelihood of Mycroft's oft-threatened retirement. What little John gleans from Annie of her work, and Sherlock's most recent visit to the genteel elderly care home where his father now lives.

"He looks amazing for 100," John says around a mouthful of spaghetti, shaking his head over the most recent photograph of a relatively hale Mr. Holmes before handing Sherlock's phone back to him. Sherlock pockets it, rolling his eyes.

"For God's sake, John. Did you never learn to eat with your mouth closed?"

John shrugs, taking another bite.

"This is really good," he says after an exaggerated swallow. "Since when do you cook?"

"Since forever," Sherlock replies shortly. "I've always known how to cook - it's simple chemistry."

"Yes, I'm sure you've always _known_ how to cook. Knowing you, you probably emerged from the womb with a knife in one hand and, I don't know, a turkey baster in the other." Sherlock's eyebrows reach alarming new heights. "What I'm asking is when you actually started doing it. God knows -"

John realises, almost too late, how close he's drifted towards talk of Before, and covers his blunder with a long sip of water. Sherlock, his partner in this high-stakes dance, deftly rises to this unspoken invitation to change the subject.

"Rain," he announces, apropos of nothing. John chokes a bit, swallows and laughs.

"Rain?"

"Yes, rain." Sherlock's serious expression is belied by the amusement in his eyes and a slight twitching of his lips. "A storm, in fact - there's been talk of a yellow warning, and I may need your help in securing the hives tomorrow."

"Of course," John says; then, "I won't - that is, you do have something I can wear, don't you?"

"Yes, yes, I've got a spare suit and hood in the shed. Might be a bit… big."

"Dickhead," John grumbles, provoking a smile from Sherlock.

"You're not allergic, are you?"

"To bees? Not that I know of."

"Well," Sherlock says, standing. "There's really only one way to find out for sure."

"Oi!" John laughs, then rises to take the plates to the kitchen. As he washes up the dishes, Sherlock goes into the bedroom, emerging a minute or two later with his pyjamas in hand. John spies them from where he's drying his hands on the tea towel, and with sudden realisation he says, "I'm taking up your bedroom."

Sherlock shrugs. "It's nothing. Most nights I end up on the sofa anyway."

"But I can just as easily -"

" _John_ ," he says. "This is me being 'hospitable'. Take advantage of it - I can't honestly say how long it's going to last."

They still, and the moment grows ripe between them. Each knows he's been playing a part tonight, neither ready to break character. The time to say something more comes and goes, and only after it's safely passed does John duck his head in acknowledgement.

"All right," he says. "And thanks."

He starts to head down the short corridor as Sherlock brushes past him into the kitchen, then stops and says, facing the wall, "I mean it. Thank you. For - this."

* * *

The bright light of a full moon is streaming through the window when John startles awake. His nightmares are more mundane these days, less flashbacks than warped memories that take on fresh, frightening life in his subconscious. But by the time he's rolled over, pounded the pillow and flopped back down with a sigh, the dream is gone, and John's left with only the cacophony of his thoughts to lull him back to sleep.

His mind drifts, skimming past and present until it turns up a conversation he'd had with Mary perhaps a year before she died. He'd suggested out of nowhere that they celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary in style - invite their old friends and make a weekend of it somewhere in the country. Mary had laughed at John's unusual forethought, seeing as it was still a few years away, but mortality had been weighing heavily on him ever since Harry's sudden death a few months earlier. He and Mary had married late enough in life that fifty years together was almost certainly too much to ask, and he'd just wanted something to look forward to - some new thing to remind him that the best was not yet behind them.

Mary had said no.

She'd insisted that she'd much rather pass it quietly, just the two of them - maybe a trip somewhere they'd never been. John couldn't understand; and then, after she'd become sick, he wondered if she'd known even then and kept it secret from him. He never asked - she never told, and now he finds himself alone in a bed in Sussex, wondering what it was that had made her shy away from a celebration.

He wonders, too, if his best man ( _friend_ ) would have been there.

Sherlock's twilight confession flits through John's mind, but he makes no attempt to hold it down and examine it. It's a not-unpleasant flutter that gently crowds out bittersweet thoughts of Mary that have been his companion for months, all the while rousing ghosts of a half-imagined fancy John had thought died with Sherlock

He closes his eyes and sighs - stretches and then brings his phone close enough to his face to see the time.

2:40 am.

With nothing for it but to try to get back to sleep, John turns to his side and burrows under the bedding. He closes his eyes again, concentrates on his breathing and clears his mind, as Ella had once taught him, so many years ago.

And just before he slips into unconsciousness, not quite an afterthought, John turns his face into Sherlock's pillow and breathes.


	17. Chapter 17

When John next wakes, it's to the sound of Sherlock rummaging through the chest of drawers. He lifts up on his elbows and squints, bleary-eyed, across the room.

"What're you doing… ?" he says groggily, and Sherlock glances back over his shoulder.

"Ah, good, you're awake. The wind's picked up overnight, and I'll need your assistance in lowering the hives before the rain begins."

John falls back to the bed, throwing an arm over his eyes with a drawn-out groan.

"I'm not awake, Sherlock."

"Close enough. Ah, here it is."

Sherlock stands, a navy blue jumper in hand, and heads to the bathroom, calling out, "Don't dawdle, John."

"I'm not 'dawdling', Sherlock. It's called 'waking up'."

John turns to his side with a loud huff, yanking the quilt over his exposed shoulder to the sound of Sherlock banging around across the hallway. After a moment he gives an audible sigh, then reaches out to grab his phone and check the time. When he puts it back down, he spies a glass of water and another pill on the nightstand. Resentment nags at the back of his mind, muted but there; yet he can't help but be touched - if a bit amazed - by Sherlock's care. It's not exactly that he's been oblivious all these years to Sherlock's more sentimental side. But for so long it had been his many rudenesses, his indifference to social niceties that had stuck with John - so much so that they'd become the whole of him in his imagination.

He stares at the glass, more questions than answers filling his sleepy mind; then, with a decisive grunt, he sits up and pops the pill in his mouth, swallowing it down with a swig of the water. It seems the path of least resistance, especially this early in the morning.

* * *

John is swathed in white when he emerges from the shed, the long leggings of Sherlock's spare outfit bunched up around his ankles. Sherlock, occupied with storing bits of equipment safely inside the shed, looks up and sputters at the sight.

"Shut up," John grumbles. "We can't all be -" he waves a gloved hand in Sherlock's general direction, "Greek gods."

By the time they get down to the hives, the wind is gusting hard enough to be a threat to the integrity of their hoods. Shouting to be heard, Sherlock directs John to take one side of the first hive, standing opposite him. He lifts it on Sherlock's count, trying desperately to stay calm as agitated bees dart around their heads, and they slowly carry it to a concrete slab on the leeward side of the shed. Once it's down, Sherlock retrieves a cinder block from the shed and sets it on top of the hive, repeating the process three more times as the weather continues to deteriorate.

Rain is just beginning to pelt down on them in sheets when they finish and run back up to the cottage, tumbling inside windswept and breathless. John hangs his jacket on the hook by the door and wipes wet drops from his glasses, then turns to put the kettle on; and suddenly there's Sherlock, ruddy and tousled and eyes alight, ducking his head to look out the window below the eaves. In the space of a moment, John's transported back twenty-odd years, leaning up against the wall of a dim London entryway and laughing, breathless and alive and so very nearly in love he can taste it. He'd forgotten - no. He'd packed the memory away, never to be taken out and examined. It's one that had warmed him in the days before, tortured him every hour afterwards, and only Sherlock's preoccupation with getting his wax jacket off and hung helps John keep the startled flash of his eyes to himself.

"Tea?" John asks, clearing his throat, and Sherlock answers with a distracted nod.

"There was a storm here a few years ago as well. Eroded the beach, it was so strong - the sea churned, muddy… I'd never seen anything like it before."

He's smiling to himself as he speaks.

"Any damage?"

"Mm. Fallen trees, mainly. No casualties, but a few people had taken shelter in the village hall and returned to water damage."

A strong gust rattles the seaward window, and in its wake John hears him say, low, "Glorious."

He shakes his head.

"You know, most people would be worried."

Sherlock looks back over his shoulder, a devilish grin spreading across his face.

"We're not 'most people', John."

John shrugs, old resignation weighing the gesture down.

" _You're_ not, certainly. I'm as ordinary as they come."

He tries not to squirm under Sherlock's suddenly deductive gaze. John's shoulders are slumped - very nearly bent - his face pale, and Sherlock's eyes rake over the length of his body, taking in every tired detail.

And then, unexpectedly, his expression softens.

"Never," he says quietly, shaking his head.

Tears - always too ready these days - spring to John's eyes. He whirls back around to the counter and busies himself with the tea until he can bring his traitorous, trembling lips under control. When it's steeped and John has calmed, he carries their mugs over to stand by Sherlock at the window, silently handing him one as they watch the roiling waters below.

For a time, there's nothing to be heard but soft sips and the muffled roar of the sea. His admonishment notwithstanding, John's not immune to the siren strength of the worsening weather. As a boy, he'd always run into the storms, not away, glorying in the visceral thrill of charged air and beating rain. Harry, with all her audacity, had always shied away, but not John; and now, even with the passage of time, with the loss of Mary and fewer years ahead of him than behind, he can feel it once again - a distant electricity coursing through his veins.

"So placid on the surface," Sherlock murmurs into the silence, looking ahead. "The unchanging sea, setting time by the sun. Almost boring in its regularity, but fathomless and endlessly mysterious. We may never know all the creatures who make their home in its depths - and, John, how wonderful is that? And when it's riled, like now, it's almost divine in its wrath. Churning and crashing and ripping the earth away… "

He falls quiet. Throughout this short soliloquy, John's breath has grown shallow, eyes unseeing, and he doesn't know why; but the old charge is there, palpable between them, causing John's fingers to clench, and clench again.

"Poseidon," Sherlock says, then looks down at John. "Do you see?"

John glances up at him, then quickly shifts his gaze back to the window. He sees, and observes, better than he ever had in the past. But he has no idea what to say, and so, silent, he lets the steady, swift pounding of the rain on the glass speak for him instead.


	18. Chapter 18

"You staying with Mr. Holmes, then?"

In what, to John, seems a rare abundance of caution, they've come into the village for Sherlock to buy a new torch and a few candles at the hardware store next door, leaving him to contemplate their dinner from the meager offerings of the local shop. He looks over his shoulder from where he's idly perusing tinned beans to find a ruddy man with white hair glaring at him from behind the cashier counter.

"I am," he answers affably, receiving a grunt in return.

"Haven't seen you here before. You a friend of his?"

John blinks rapidly. "Old friend, yes," he replies with a tight smile.

The clerk looks him up and down over half-moon glasses.

"Is there a problem?" John asks with a tilt of his head.

The man's eyes narrow.

"Only, the last 'friend' he brought here weren't very kind to him, if you know what I mean."

John's frown deepens, hands clenching as his heart catches slightly.

"Who wasn't kind to him? When?"

The man's eyes shift to the window, presumably looking for Sherlock. Once he seems assured it's safe to speak, he answers, "Never knew his name, but he was a poncy git. Sports car, Italian shoes - never understood what Mr. Holmes saw in him, but they popped round nearly every weekend there for awhile."

John can feel his eyes widening.

"Used to poke fun at Mr. Holmes, he did," the clerk continues, shaking his head. "Always joking about him taking things too seriously - not like him. I just never got why a good man like Mr. Holmes would take up with the likes of him."

Of the thousand different directions John's thoughts are tempted to go, he chooses that word - _good_ \- to fixate on. He's heard Sherlock described in so many ways over the years - had himself blogged about him in terms both glowing and awestruck - but he can't remember anyone ever calling Sherlock "good"… though, then again, the word seems to echo some memory just out of John's reach.

"You think he's good?" John asks, and the clerk glowers at him.

"You sure you're a friend?"

He nods, a slight flush rising to his face. "Yes, of course, it's just that I haven't heard… that is, people usually don't… "

Rolling his eyes, the clerk puts John out of his awkward misery.

"I know what you're saying, and it's true. He don't go in for people much, and he can be a rude bastard to boot. But his heart's in the right place, if you know what I mean. Why, just a couple months ago he worked out a new wheelchair for the Jones boy down the way. Said it didn't make much sense, since he could use his legs a bit, not to get them some exercise as well, and 'course legs are stronger than arms, he said. So he fixes up a new wheelchair and gives it to him, just like that. Never seen a happier kid, pedalling around the village on that thing."

He gives a small huff and shrugs.

"Little things, but they add up."

Hours from now, John will still be turning the story over in his mind, trying to make sense of it all - this Sherlock who cares, who feels where he'd never seemed to before. But a suspicion will lurk in the back of his mind that it's not Sherlock who'd changed at all; that it was John who had never wanted to see and believe that Sherlock could possibly have a heart - that it could ache and seek out new attachments when the old ones failed him.

Old resentments John had believed dead and buried will flare to life as he goes through the motions of making dinner - his heartbreak over Sherlock's death, never quite healed, and the crushing relief that had underlaid John's burning wrath at his return. Half-forgotten memories will seep to the surface: Sherlock's face on the night of his wedding and his open, pained gaze on that horrible night after he'd been shot - red-rimmed eyes when they'd said goodbye on the tarmac. John will realise it had been, after all, a goodbye of sorts and, seeing it, begin to wonder if perhaps all of this might be a new hello.

But here, now, the only words that rise to his lips speak his heart long before he knows it.

"Have there been more?" John asks, oblivious to the way his eyes glitter in the dim light. "Friends?"

The clerk hesitates. "None that I recall. He's a quiet one, Mr. Holmes is, and I've often thought the one bloke was enough for him to forget the rest." Jutting his chin out in John's direction, he adds, "Till you."

John nods, and another question on the tip of his tongue when Sherlock pokes his head in the door and calls out, "John, what's taking so long? Come along before the weather worsens." Glancing over at the clerk as John, scowling, places his basket of groceries on the counter, he says, "Evening, Tom."

"Mr. Holmes," Tom replies with a smile. "Quite a night out there."

"It is indeed. Which is why we must be going - _now_ , John."

Sherlock dashes back out the door, and Tom begins ringing up the contents of John's basket, chuckling to himself.

"Not like the other bloke, then," he says, almost under his breath.

But when John's paid and heading out the door, he hears a gasp from behind and turns towards the sound.

"John… " Tom says, staring at him. "Watson?"

Blood rushes to John's face and he nods.

"I used to read - I was a… " he starts, then holds out his hand and says, simply, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Watson."

John returns to the counter and takes his hand, giving it a firm shake.

"The pleasure is mine," he replies with his kindest smile, then tilts his head in the direction of the door. 'I'd better be off."

He departs the store with a wave, leaving a grinning Tom in his wake.


	19. Chapter 19

It's not a sound, but deafening silence lacking the ubiquitous electric hum of modern life, that rouses John from a sound sleep. Pelting rain and the dull roar of crashing waves fill the dark void outside, the only light a faint, warm glow framing the bedroom door. There's a chill in the air that hadn't been there when he went to bed and, concerned for his friend camped out on the sofa, John sleepily trudges out to the front room to check on him.

Sherlock is a sepia-toned shadow in the light of the fire. He's slowly turning the stem of a half-filled wine glass between his fingertips as he stares ahead, seemingly oblivious to John's presence. John takes the opportunity to stare as well, myopic eyes and soft light conspiring to make Sherlock look hopelessly young again. Gone are his grey streaks and deepening wrinkles, the effect taking John back to a time when all the world seemed to coalesce in this one, enigmatic man.

Wordlessly, John takes a seat on the opposite end of the sofa, settling back against its flame-warmed cushions with a sigh, and there they sit for long moments, each lost in his own thoughts.

When finally he speaks, the words that pour forth overlay an unanticipated sob.

"I loved her so much - I miss her every day. Even after - she changed everything for me. Everything."

Perhaps it's the darkness, or the low, comforting rumble of the storm outside, that draws the words from John.

"I was so alone, Sherlock," he goes on. "I was so alone, and then she was there, and it was as if I could finally breathe again. And… "

John clears his throat, eyes fixed ahead. If he notices how Sherlock's fingertips have whitened on the stem of his glass, he gives no sign of it as he stumbles recklessly ahead.

"And you - you were there when I was alone, too - and then you were gone, Sherlock, and it was like… and then there was M -"

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he squeezes his eyes shut and wills his quivering lips to still.

"Even after everything," he stammers. "Even after what she did. I loved her, Sherlock, I loved her with all my heart."

"I know."

Sherlock's words are little more than a low croak, and he too clears his throat; but John is shaking his head, unseeing.

"No, you don't - I'm… I'm so sorry, Sherlock. I'm so sorry," he says, his voice breaking on the last word. Sherlock's bloodshot eyes dart to his face as words continue to spill from his lips. "I had to choose, and I chose -"

"Correctly. You chose correctly, John."

He speaks softly, the only thing giving him away his faintly nasal pronunciation, and it pulls a sorrowful moan from John.

"I never wanted -"

"You moved on, John. I had died." Sherlock gives a deceptively light shrug. "What else should you have done?"

He brings the tapered fingers of his left hand to rest over a place on his chest, rubbing it through the thin fabric of his t-shirt.

" _This_ was all the proof I needed to know she would take care of you. Where I had failed so abysmally, so many times, she was determined to see you safe - how could that have possibly been wrong?"

Old anger surges, unbidden, through John.

"But she shot you," he growls in an echo of the past, and for a moment Sherlock's face is frozen in surprise. Then, to John's disbelief, he breaks into a wide smile, punctuated by the tears that spring to his eyes.

"Mixed messages, I grant you," he says, nose reddened and his voice suffused with a kind of sorrowful mirth. John's mouth falls open with a gasp, quickly giving way to a huff of laughter that grows with Sherlock's own until they're both wiping tears from their faces; and as they quiet in the calm of dissipated tension, Sherlock picks up the empty wine glass John had left on the table after dinner and fills it halfway, finishing off the bottle in his own. He hands John's glass to him and raises his own.

"To Mary," he intones.

John lightly taps his glass to Sherlock's.

"To Mary."

The pounding rain softens to a shower as they drink. John's eyelids grow heavy, but there's one more question he's been meaning to ask, and even in his sleepy state he thinks there may never be a better time. He glances over at Sherlock, who's gone back to staring at the fire, though his posture is now more relaxed.

"Sherlock?"

"Hmm?"

"There was… that is, a few months ago I found a - an object behind Mary's headstone. You wouldn't happen to know anything about it?"

The glow of the fire on Sherlock's face deepens to a soft crimson as blood rises to his pale cheeks.

"A bullet."

"Yes," John says. "With -"

"Words, yes." A second later, he mutters, "I thought I'd buried it deep enough."

"It came up."

If John is expecting some sort of explanation, the lengthening silence suggests it won't come without some prompting.

"The words - 'For you'. What do they mean?"

Sherlock takes a deep breath, quaffs down the rest of his wine and replies with an embarrassed tilt of his head, "At your wedding - the reception, after your first dance. We talked - the three of us. I assume you remember."

"Of course I do. But I don't see what -"

"When - when we were done, and it was time to dance. Mary, she… understood. Things. And those were her parting words to me. As you danced away."

By now, Sherlock is sitting bolt-upright on the sofa, his tone growing distant in inverse proportion to the intimacy of this small revelation.

"It was just a silly, sentimental token of something that passed between us, a long time ago."

 _We can't all three dance._

Newly remembered words recall the strange chemistry of the moment, which John had been all too eager to escape. Only now, though, does he understand ( _admit_ ) that they'd broken a heart in the process, and the realisation cements a nascent desire paradoxically born of regret and dawning possibility.

"Dance with me."

Sherlock startles from his self-imposed stiffness, gaping at John as he rasps, "What?"

John stands, holds out a hand to him, and repeats with a soft smile. "Dance. With me. Here."

The hope-tinged vulnerability suffusing Sherlock's eyes goes straight to his heart.

"It's not like we haven't done it before," he says casually to the unfurling of an answering smile.

Sherlock seems to square his shoulders, then places a cool hand in John's warm one as John pulls him to his feet, leading him over to an open patch of floor by the large window.

"As I recall, you were abysmal," Sherlock murmurs with a wry grin.

He lifts his free hand to John's shoulder as John pulls them close, resting his own on the negligible curve of Sherlock's waist. Glancing up sheepishly to find Sherlock looking down at him with uncertain eyes, John gives him a crooked grin.

"I got better."

Under his breath, John counts out "one, two, three" and begins to guide Sherlock in a quiet shuffle across the floor. Their feet are bare, the only sound that of John's self-conscious giggles. Sherlock allows himself to be led, following in John's clumsy footsteps with a grace and patience he would scarcely have thought possible before.

Eventually, the formality of their waltz succumbs to a loose embrace that finds John's arms winding around Sherlock's waist - Sherlock's head bending to rest his cheek against his hair. The fire dwindles to the glow of banked embers while they rock back and forth to the steady rhythm of the waves far below, lulled into drowsy calm, and when nighttime chill seeps back into the air around them, John takes a step back.

"Come to bed, Sherlock," he says.

Sherlock's eyes widen. "Bed?"

"No - oh God, I mean -" John starts with a rueful laugh. "To sleep. It's cold out here with the electricity out. Come to bed - it'll be warmer with the two of us."

Sherlock's gaze slides to the darkened corridor, worry wending its way back into his expression.

"Are you sure?"

John nods, reaching out to take Sherlock's hand again and giving it a light tug.

"Come on. I'm freezing."

The sight of their clasped hands seems to give Sherlock pause, but he nods tightly.

"All right," he answers, and together they retreat into the darkness.


	20. Chapter 20

John is alone when he wakes.

The next three days pass quietly, their midnight interlude a phantom presence between them. Neither speaks of it, though less from avoidance than the justified caution that comes from standing too close to the edge of a cliff.

Once they've attended to the debris left by the storm, once the beehives - unscathed - have been restored to their perches, Sherlock gives John a wide berth, returning to his routine while, for his part, John allows himself the rare luxury of doing absolutely nothing. He daily makes the choice to take his medication, chooses to shower and shave and eat; and, accepting that these things, however small, are enough for now, he gives the rest of his days over to basking like a cat in the sun.

John's thoughts turn to Mary most when he's out walking alone. Ever since her death, he's dwelled on every regret, every unvoiced resentment and its attendant guilt, every missed opportunity and all the times he never told her he loved her. Now, as he absently brushes his hands over tall grass, breathes in briny seaside air and lets his mind wander, such thoughts subside to a murmur - still there, but distant. In their place is a mellowed memory of Mary that may still bring tears to his eyes, but warms him nonetheless. The jagged edges of the hole she left in his life soften, a bittersweet ache defanged, and for the first time in months, John begins to believe he can, after all, keep living in the wake of her loss.

Where once he had gone to pains to avoid touching Sherlock, lest his intentions be misunderstood, John finds himself slowly entering his orbit. A brush of fingers here, an affectionate, lingering hand on his shoulders there; in all, a tangible connection that seems to help repair the threadbare ties that had once bound them. John stretches out on sun-baked ground in the afternoons, hands behind his head, and rebuilds Sherlock in his mind. The reified robot he'd clung to for years gains flesh and feelings, and with them comes a desire - a need - to know more about him - his childhood, his dreams and disappointments. John wants to know who this other friend was that Sherlock would allow himself to be mistreated - how such self-abasement could even be possible in a man like him. Watching Sherlock from afar, John finally perceives both the why and the way he's kept the world at arm's length, and he wonders if Sherlock, too, had had a breaking point, when anyone was better than the crushing loneliness of a life without love.

Their rocky start aside, John had chosen well - but perhaps Sherlock hadn't, all of it just luck in the end.

Three days pass; and on the fourth day after the storm, when the sight of a windswept Sherlock climbing up from the beach pulls a pang of ineffable _want_ in John's chest, he knows it's time to leave.

Their last night together is a quiet affair; once they've finished dinner, they retreat to companionable fireside silence, where John asks Sherlock if he still plays the violin.

"Mm."

He stands and goes over to the shelf where his violin case lies, while John settles back on the sofa, closing his eyes with a smile as Sherlock tunes his instrument. But he startles when Sherlock begins to play, virtuosic where once he'd only been good. The melody is unfamiliar, a heart-aching melange of despair and hope and longing that soars, crests, and falls before ending abruptly on an incomplete note.

"That's as far as I've got," Sherlock explains, then turns to replace the violin in its case. John's eyes follow him, soft with a new kind of wonder.

"It's beautiful," he murmurs. "I didn't know you'd got so good."

He catches a glimpse of Sherlock's small smile, though the dim light obscures the pleased flush that rises to his cheeks.

"I've had plenty of time to practise," he replies with a shrug.

"Yeah, but that was amazing."

Sherlock turns at the words, eyes shining though his smile has gone.

"Do you know you do that out loud?" he asks quietly.

John nods.

"I do."

* * *

"Come in for a cuppa?" John asks when they pull up in front of the terraced house.

"Can't," Sherlock says. "I promised Mycroft I'd stop by on my way home, and -" he glances at his wristwatch "- I'm already running late."

"Since when do you care about being on time for Mycroft?" John says with a laugh, pulling his bag from the boot. Sherlock closes it, twirling the keys absently as he takes in their suburban surroundings.

"I don't. His wife, however… "

"Regular shrew, is she?" John asks, and Sherlock makes an affronted face in response.

"Certainly not. Her, I adore - she's kept him off my back for years. Tomorrow's her sixtieth birthday, and I promised I'd meet them for dinner."

John gives Sherlock an exaggeratedly appraising look.

"So that explains the hair and the suit and the general… " he waves his hand in Sherlock's direction. "Attractiveness."

The silence that follows lingers a beat too long - long enough for John to hear the truth behind his flippant words and feel the corresponding skip of his heart. He glances up to find Sherlock looking down at him, his expression unreadable, then defuses the moment with an extended hand. Sherlock takes it in his, fingers tight around John's, and gives it a firm, if impersonal, shake. But when the fingers loosen and Sherlock turns to go, John reaches out on impulse and wraps his own hand around Sherlock's wrist, pulling him back. He looks down at his feet, his breath suddenly coming in pants to the time of his racing heart, then raises his eyes to Sherlock's.

"Thank you," he says, a tremor woven into his words. "I don't -"

"John," Sherlock interrupts. "There's no need -"

"No." All the bullheadedness that Mary sometimes had deplored rises to the fore. "There _is_ a need - I need to tell you, and you need to hear it. Thank you, Sherlock, for coming and taking me away from here. I needed -"

John's words catch on an inconvenient sob.

"I needed it."

Blinded by tears he no longer can suppress, John pulls Sherlock into a tight embrace, burying his head against his shoulder as Sherlock wraps an arm around him and lays his cheek to John's head in an unconscious echo of their dance, a distant memory only days past. Once John has calmed, he takes a step back, wipes his eyes with a rueful smile, and picks up his bag. Sherlock, thus released, walks to the driver-side door with uncharacteristic gracelessness, then lifts his hand in a wave.

"I'll be in touch," John says, returning the wave, and Sherlock nods.

Only when Sherlock's car has turned the corner, out of sight, does John climb the stairs and go inside.


	21. Chapter 21

His Sherlock-supplied bupropion now dwindling, John requests and receives a new prescription from a relieved Naz on his return. After two weeks on the medication, he begins to notice how the constant churn of anxiety and despair that had consumed so many of his waking hours since Mary died has receded. Not diminished, but distanced enough for him to begin to escape its pull. On Annie's suggestion, and recalling what he'd told James so many years ago, John acquires a therapist to facilitate the process, acquiescing to her gentle instruction on how to live with the darkness without letting it devour him.

He talks about Mary and finds that in the talking she once again becomes a living presence in his life. In the same way he'd trained himself to dispose of anything that might expose his deepest vulnerabilities, John had tried for months to box up his memories of her - put them away where they could no longer hurt him. But he discovers that, in so doing, he'd managed to divorce himself from some of the best, most important moments of his life, excising the good along with the bad with such blunt-edged ineptitude that the memories had festered where they might have healed. His therapist now teaches him how to take them out, one by one, and slowly reweave them into the variegated tapestry of his unfinished life.

Over the course of this exercise, John comes across dustier boxes, ragged with age, and these he opens alone in the privacy of his mind. Here are his memories of life with Sherlock - both the painful and the pleasurable; and beneath those other memories - hidden treasures softly glittering in the light - that, released, flood his awareness. Sherlock's eyes, his hair and hands; his infectious enthusiasm and the glee that had always roused John's own playfulness. The way he'd looked when, drowsy and warm, they'd locked eyes in bed, and the feel of his body, long and solid, against John's as they danced. Deeper still are the things his possessive subconscious has hoarded - the missed beats of John's heart at a wayward glance, hints of Sherlock's own vulnerability and John's primal need to protect. The beginnings of something that can only be love, wrapped in gossamer affection and buried where once he would have been least likely to find it.

* * *

A month after his return to London, John is working late at the clinic under the cold light of a single fluorescent lamp, when impulse spurs him to pick up his phone.

 _To: Sherlock_  
 _From: John_

 _I've begun ranking my patients in the same way you used to do with your cases. Mine seem to need negative numbers to truly capture just how awful some of them really are._

John hits send, imagining Sherlock reading quietly in the light of his fire when the message arrives; and, sure enough, his response is almost instantaneous.

 _To: John_  
 _From: Sherlock_

 _Diarrheoa? - SH_

He laughs, voice echoing in his empty office. A small ember of affection flares bright as he types out his response.

 _To: Sherlock_  
 _From: John_

 _Impetigo. A -3 at least._

A pause in which John imagines a kind of perverse delight suffusing Sherlock's face; then

 _To: John_  
 _From: Sherlock_

 _At least. And you persist in this why? - SH_

It's a question John's been asking himself lately, and he replies with rare honesty.

 _To: Sherlock_  
 _From: John_

 _I'm not really sure anymore._

Their texting eventually becomes something of a nightly ritual, at first always initiated by John, but eventually by Sherlock as well. Sherlock's ironclad grip on his softer emotions seems to weaken under the gentle force of their healing friendship, until the night John receives a message that sounds for all the world like a plea in disguise.

 _To: John_  
 _From: Sherlock_

 _It's cold and clear tonight, John. There are more stars in the sky than one could ever count. I wish you were here to see it._

John is in bed watching the news when Sherlock's text arrives and, reading it, he suddenly wants it too - to be sitting on the steps of Sherlock's weathered cottage, leaning against him in the cold winter calm as they look up at the stars together. To grab a little more life while he still can, instead of shutting himself up in a sepulchre. He drags his eyes from the words to glance around the bedroom; traces of Mary remain in the remaining jewellery she had worn, in scraps of shopping lists he's never been able to bin, but mostly he finds only things where once there had been a life. Mary is gone, and the realisation makes John wonder why he remains.

 _To: Sherlock_  
 _From: John_

 _I wish I was, too._

* * *

 **December, 2038**

It takes longer than it used to for John to climb to his feet from the floor of Annie's loo. He knows he needs more exercise, though he has a sneaking suspicion his weakened knees are here to stay.

"That should do it," he says to Annie, who's leaning, fretful, against the door jamb.

"Thanks, Dad," she says. "I'm useless with the plumbing."

John goes into the bathroom to wash his hands, making sure to give his daughter a pointed glance over his glasses on the way.

"There's no reason you should be. MI-6? I think you can handle a faulty flapper."

Annie laughs and heads downstairs.

"Why should I, when I have you?"

When John joins her in the kitchen, sitting down to a steaming cup of tea coloured perfectly by just the right dollop of milk, he risks a self-conscious look at her, clears his throat and says, "What if I weren't around anymore?"

Annie freezes in her tracks, a look of horror filling her eyes until, seeing it, John backtracks hurriedly, insisting, "No! No, I'm fine - I'm _fine_ , Annie."

She falls into the chair across from him, more relieved than upset.

"If you're sure you're all right," she says, and John nods. "Then why wouldn't you be around anymore?"

John tilts his head, feels his face warm with a slight rush of blood. He fixes his eyes on his mug; his fingers trace the handle, the rim, idly sliding around and over until he finds the words to explain.

"Only, with your mother gone… it's too much house for me alone, yeah? And I've been thinking of moving."

"But you'd still be in London, right?"

He screws up his mouth, trying to hide the embarrassed smile that's struggling to make itself seen.

"Maybe not?" John sighs, takes a sip of his tea and returns the cup to the table with a soft thud. "I don't know. I don't even know what I'm thinking."

He looks up at Annie, observes for the millionth time all the ways she resembles Mary, and his nascent resolve falters.

"I loved your mother," he quietly insists.

"I know you did," Annie says, covering his hand resting on the table with her own. "Dad, what is all this about?"

John removes his glasses and rubs his eyes with a sigh. He's never been good at this sort of thing, least of all with his own child, but there's been no one to confide in save his therapist, and he wants…

"Oh!"

He glances up as Annie pulls her hand away to hurry into the other room, eyes lit with some unspoken understanding. When she returns, she's carrying a white envelope that she holds out to him. John takes it and finds his name written there - in Mary's handwriting. An electric wave of unreality sweeps over him at the sight.

"What is this?"

Annie, still standing, ducks her head as she explains, "Mum gave it me to give you."

John glowers at his daughter.

"Then why didn't you?"

"Well, that's the thing," she replies. "She wasn't very clear about it, but she said to give it you if you ever started talking about things… leaving."

"Leaving," John repeats, and Annie blushes.

"Or - Sherlock."

The last word is almost whispered.

"I'll just… " she says, gesturing towards the front room. "Be in there."

John's hands haven't trembled in an age - even the intermittent tremor left over from the war had all but disappeared by the time Annie was born. But they tremble now as he turns the envelope over in his hands, slips a finger under the flap and tears it open. He tilts his head back a bit in order to see through the bottom half of his progressives, and Mary's words come into focus.

 _Dearest Husband,_

 _If you're reading this, it means you've finally got your head out of your arse and have somehow had the foresight to confide in Annie._

 _I have loved you so much. The choice you made that Christmas gave me back my life and allowed me to stop living a lie. For that alone, I will always be in your debt. That it came at the expense of someone else's happiness has been the one shadow over my own, and if I can give some of it back in any small measure…_

 _If I know you, and you've gone so far as to talk to Annie, you're probably feeling guilty and you want absolution - or more likely, permission. I give you neither. Not because I disapprove of your feelings - far from it. I want nothing more than your happiness, John - I always have. But when you came to me that Christmas day, you'd made a decision - a choice, John - to be with me. You'd weighed all the pros and cons, and you had decided I was worth it, despite all the pain I had caused. That was what meant so very much to me, and if I can give that to Sherlock - because it is Sherlock, isn't it? He deserves it as much as I ever did - maybe even more, for having waited so long and so patiently. To be your choice, no matter what anyone else might think, including me._

 _If you love him, John, choose him and be happy._

 _All my love, forever and ever,_

 _Mary_

When Annie returns, John wordlessly hands her the letter. He stands, gathers up his canvas tool bag, and puts on his winter coat while her eyes flit over the words, and when she joins him at the door, he says, simply, "I may not be around as much anymore."

Annie nods, her tearful smile echoing the bittersweet joy in his heart.

"I know."

John clears his throat, his fatherly facade crumbling a bit as he says in his gruff way, "Learn to fix the toilet."

He leans over and kisses Annie softly on the cheek, then opens the door and heads out into the late December cold.


	22. Chapter 22

John has absolutely no idea what he's doing.

By the time he turns off the A21, his palms are sweaty and his stomach has succumbed to what feels like a horde of rampaging butterflies. He'd only taken the time to throw a few things into his duffel before setting out, pausing just long enough to pull a small case from his chest of drawers. Only when he reaches the village outskirts does he realise he hasn't eaten since breakfast and, spying one of the town's two auto charging stations, John pulls in and climbs out of the car. He bends, rests his hands on his knees and takes several deep breaths, trying to calm his racing heart before it becomes a matter of medical record.

Once his lightheadedness has passed, John straightens, stretches his aching back, and walks over to the small station shop across the way, where he finds the door locked. Cupping a hand to the glass door, he peers in, startling back when it's pushed open from inside and a voice calls out, "Dr. Watson!"

He recognises white hair and red face from months before, grasping at a name.

"Yes, hello again," John says, holding out his hand. The man takes it and gives him a hearty handshake. "Tom, isn't it?"

"That it is! It's been awhile, doctor," Tom says. "Come in - Rob'll be back in a tick." He jerks his head towards the back of the shop. "Curry - it don't agree with him like it used to."

"Say no more," John replies in what he hopes is a sympathetic tone as he heads to the refrigerator to rummage for anything appetising. Tom locks the door again, then takes a seat on a stool by the register.

"You here to see Mr. Holmes, then?"

John's hand freezes halfway to picking out a cheese and pickle sandwich.

"Mmm."

He takes the sandwich and heads for the crisps, anxious to hide his blushing face.

"Good thing, if you don't mind me saying."

"Sorry?" John turns to find Tom looking at him meaningfully over his half-moon glasses.

"Only, he's not been himself lately, if you know what I mean."

"Not been himself?" A sudden itch to see Sherlock - _now_ \- rises to the fore of John's distracted mind.

Tom nods, about to explain when a slightly younger man, dark-skinned and slender, comes up from the back to the counter, looking questioningly from John to Tom and back again.

"Rob!" Tom exclaims, pointing at John. "This is John Watson - the one I - Dr. Watson, the blogger!"

Rob's eyes light up, and he holds out his hand.

"Tom's been talking about nothing else since he met you," he says with a smile. Fumbling for a moment with his handful of groceries, John takes the proffered hand.

"Haven't blogged in years, but it's always good to know someone was reading."

"Dr. Watson's headed down to Mr. Holmes's place," Tom explains. To John's surprise, Rob's smile gentles.

"That's good," he says with a nod, taking the sandwich and crisps to ring them up. "He's seemed, I dunno, a bit lonelier than usual lately."

Rob meets John's eyes as he hands over a small shopping bag.

"I hope you'll be staying for awhile?"

This time, John can't stop the furious blush that floods his face. He takes the bag and clears his throat.

"That's the idea… " he says, further nonplussed when Rob claps a hand on his shoulder from across the counter, giving it a light squeeze.

"It'll be fine, you'll see."

John's got half a mind to be affronted by this stranger's presumption, but when he catches the way Rob's eyes slide to Tom, beaming from his place on the stool, then back to him, he accepts it for the solidarity it seems to be. He ducks his head in acknowledgement, then leaves the shop with a wave.

* * *

The sandwich he'd scoffed at the charging station threatens to come right back up when Sherlock's cottage comes into view. He slows the car, the sound of gravel under his tyres filling the interior, and his eyes scan the property; shed, hives - now battened down for winter - and house all appear intact. There's a warm glow coming from the windows of the front room, bright in the late afternoon gloom, and there's… a woman sitting in Sherlock's rocking chair on the verandah.

John pulls his car up alongside what he assumes is hers, frowning as he steps out and ambles over to the house.

"Afternoon," he says when she looks up.

"You here to see Sherlock?" she asks, and he feels his eyebrows rise. He leans up against the weathered bannister and puts one foot on the first step, crossing his arms across his chest. Against the cold, he tells himself.

"I'm sorry," John says with a thin-lipped smile. "You are… ?"

"The mother of the boy inside," the woman replies, equally guarded, nodding her head in the direction of the front room. Then she blinks and tilts her head in a gesture so reminiscent of Mary it very nearly brings a smile to his flustered face.

"Sorry. I'm Elizabeth."

John looks up at the hand she holds out and, after a moment, grasps it in his.

"John," he says with a nod, and Elizabeth's expression brightens.

"John?" she says excitedly. "You're Sherlock's John, in the picture on the mantle! He talks about you all the time."

His eyes dart to the horizon as, for what feels like the hundredth time today, a light flush rises to his cold cheeks.

"And the boy inside is… ?"

"James," she replies. "My son. Got into a bit of trouble a couple months back, and when the police called in Sherlock, he found it out. Talked with James for awhile, then said he was -" Elizabeth's eyebrows rise, attempting Sherlock's haughty expression "- 'intelligent, bored, and likely to escalate if he doesn't find something better to occupy his time."

Now John does smile, his eyes reflecting the wave of affection that washes over him at her words.

"He would know," he says, and Elizabeth nods.

"The excuse is A-levels tutoring, but I think they spend most of their time just talking."

John's long been aware of Sherlock's unexpected knack with kids - his cousin's son, Archie, then later, Annie - but this latest evidence of the heart he's kept so carefully hidden away makes John's chest ache with renewed need to see him.

He's very nearly ready to interrupt the lesson when Sherlock's door swings open and a spotty youth appears, followed close behind by the man himself. Arms spread so his hands rest on either side of the the door jamb, Sherlock is a dark silhouette framed in gold.

"Remember what I said about mixing chemicals," he warns, leaning out the doorway; then, eyes suddenly drawn to the sight of John climbing the steps, he stills.

"John… "

Sherlock whispers the word. John glances at Elizabeth, eyes averted and smiling to herself, and James, whose eyebrows are rising in direct proportion to his falling jaw, then back to Sherlock stepping out onto the verandah.

"We'll see you next week, Sherlock," Elizabeth murmurs as she gently prods James down the stairs.

Sherlock says nothing in response, his hungry eyes marking the changes a few months apart have wrought in John. When finally they're standing face-to-face, John looking up at Sherlock with a grin that won't be suppressed, Sherlock blinks, and blinks again.

"I didn't know… " he starts, his words drying up when John lays his hand on Sherlock's forearm, stroking his shirt sleeve with a callused thumb.

John's eyes are smiling.

"I didn't know, either."

Sherlock frowns, blinks and shakes his head.

"No, I mean… "

His eyes fall to where John's thumb continues to rub, letting out a soft huff at the sight.

"You… " Sherlock tilts his head. "Why are you here?"

Now it's John's turn to glance at the place where he's touching Sherlock, mesmerised by his rhythmic strokes.

"Because… " John says softly, his words nearly lost to the winter waves below. He clears his throat - looks up at Sherlock and allows unabashed hope to flood his eyes.

"Because… this is where I want to be."

John slides his hand down Sherlock's arm, fingers tightening cold around his fire-warmed skin.

"I don't -" Sherlock starts, but the words fade as his eyelids slide shut at John's touch, lips parting with a pale puff of air.

" _Sherlock_."

The name is growled, low.

"I wanted you here," Sherlock murmurs, opening his eyes. "So much. But... " A tentative hand rises to John's cheek, palm tantalisingly close to his skin. "I never thought… "

John leans into it and closes his eyes with a hum.

"You never thought?" he repeats, basking in the feel of curious fingers tracing his forehead, his nose, cheekbones and lips, uncharted territory Sherlock seems determined to explore. Then the hand falls away, and John opens his eyes to find Sherlock looking down at him.

"I never really believed you'd come."

John steps close, barely a hair's breadth separating them, then wraps his hand around the back Sherlock's neck, resting it at his nape to stroke the curls there. He gives a gentle tug - enough to signal his intent - and Sherlock follows, bending to lay his forehead against John's as their softly panting breath warms the air between them.

"I'm here," John says, unsteady, to Sherlock's answering whimper. "I'm here."

They stay like this for a time, content to stand in silence as they cross this first threshold together. Eventually, John finds his voice again.

"Sherlock?"

"Mmm?"

"It's fucking freezing out here. Do you think we could move this inside?"

Their eyes meet and they burst into laughter; and just before they break apart, John pulls Sherlock close for a soft kiss to his forehead. Then Sherlock straightens, surreptitiously wipes his eyes and looks over to where John has parked.

"Did you bring a bag?"

He sets out towards the car as John hurries behind, two steps to every one of Sherlock's as it's been since the beginning.

"Yep - though I'm not entirely sure what's in there. I was in a bit of a hurry."

He opens the boot and Sherlock reaches in, pulling out his duffel with a grin.

"There's more than a long weekend here," he says slyly, and John nods, locking up the car again.

"There is… though it's possible it's nothing but pants. I had other things on my mind."

As they return to the house, Sherlock slowing to match John's pace, John looks up and asks, "Sherlock, what exactly did you tell James about mixing chemicals?"

"Mm," Sherlock replies, standing to the side of the doorway to let John in.

It feels like coming home.

"Stupid boy, too smart for his own good. I told him, don't."


	23. Chapter 23

Things yet unsaid linger like ghosts between them.

A pot of tea, then dinner; they seek refuge in the familiarity of the mundane, each trying to get his bearings on turbulent, uncharted seas. But when the meal has been eaten, the last dish washed and lights dimmed, their conversation wanes until bed is the only banality left.

John takes his time straightening a damp tea towel on the oven handle, fussing with its folds as his mind blindly grasps at something more to say. But when he turns, it's to the sight of Sherlock standing by the door, bundled up against the cold with John's coat in hand. John crosses to him and silently takes it, eyes never leaving Sherlock's as he puts it on, and only now does Sherlock smile - reach out and brush a wayward lock of John's grey hair from his face - then lead the way into the night.

They haven't far to go. Sherlock settles near the middle of the top step of the verandah stairs, elbows on his knees, as John sits to his left. There's no sound but that of the waves, like the world's gone dormant for the season, but nature makes up for the loss with a riot of stars strewn across the sky.

"This is what I wanted to show you that night," Sherlock says, his eyes fixed above, a sliver of white teeth gleaming between parted lips. John follows his gaze, and it's beautiful. He can't remember ever having seen whole clouds of light painting the sky. But where it makes him feel small - beckons him back into the dark abyss of depression he's worked so hard to escape - one glance at Sherlock, pale in the thin light of a winter moon, grounds him in the now. Slowly, not wanting to break the fragile moment, he slips his hands from his coat pockets and takes one of Sherlock's in them. Sherlock turns to find John shifting a bit in his direction, cradling his hand and brushing his lips against it. His eyes are closed, pale eyelashes feathered on his cheeks, and only when Sherlock sighs his name does John open them, starlight on a sea of blue.

"Is this okay?" he asks quietly, and Sherlock nods.

Then another question as John's eyes drop to his lips, maddeningly close.

"Can I… ?"

Sherlock's eyes are a perfect paradox of wide wonder and sleepy sensuality; he's breathtaking, and it doesn't feel like they're in their sixties anymore. In this one, heady moment, they're thirty-five, twenty, sixteen - young, in all the ways that matter. So that when Sherlock answers with a dazed, whispered

" _Yes_ "

and John kisses him, it's like the first time in more ways than one.

No words are exchanged, everything said, and when - minutes, maybe hours later - they go back inside, the puzzle of the bed has been resolved. They stand close in the muted lamplight of Sherlock's room, one of John's hands against Sherlock's chest as he smooths the folds of his shirt.

"I don't… " Sherlock murmurs, transfixed by the sight of John's fingers sliding down his buttons. "John… what do you want?"

John's answer is steady, his expression clear.

"Whatever you can give, Sherlock. Nothing more."

His seeking fingers still as he looks up at Sherlock, desperate to get this one thing right.

"You're not gay."

"True," John says with a wry smile. "But I think it's safe to say I'm not exactly straight, either."

Something seems to ease in Sherlock's expression.

"I don't know if I… that is," he says, looking away. John reaches up with his other hand, lays it on Sherlock's cheek and gently turns his head back, looking up at him over his glasses as he shakes his head.

"It doesn't matter to me, Sherlock. None of that matters. Even if I wasn't sixty-five, even if I never stopped thinking of sex, _it wouldn't matter._ "

Worry fills Sherlock's eyes.

"You think you mean that, but -"

"No."

John shakes his head and pulls Sherlock over to sit on the edge of the bed with him. He has the feeling Sherlock's dwelled on this one thing for longer than he cares to imagine, and he knows no amount of reassurance will ever be enough in the face of it.

"Here's what I want, then," he begins again, heart aching at the sound of Sherlock's quietly resigned sigh.

"I want you to be the first thing I see every morning, and the last thing I see before I go to sleep." John smiles. "Although I know that's not always going to happen."

Sherlock huffs, but his eyes - bright and intent - are on John.

"I want to be able to touch you and hold you, and I hope you might want to do the same. I want to show you how much I -" he swallows "- love you, and keep on showing you for as long as I can. I want -"

"Love."

John's heart gives a little skip at Sherlock's odd tone, his eloquence evaporating. He nods, breath shallow and eyes wide, and all he can say is, "Yes."

And after a moment that passes like years, Sherlock looks down and lets loose that strange, down-turned smile of his - the one that says he's feeling too much and doesn't want to show it. Relief, almost palpable, washes over John, and now he too is smiling - both of them, at one another, the moment as uncomplicated as things ever will be between them, and it's then that John remembers the one thing he'd thought to bring with him when he came.

"Wait here," he says, jumping up and rummaging through his duffel. He notices in passing that he does seem to have thrown in a few shirts and trousers, as well as - thankfully - his medications, before locating what he's been looking for. Pulling it out, he returns and hands it to Sherlock: a square leather case, the size of his palm.

Sherlock frowns as he takes it.

"What's this?" he asks, about to open it when John stays his hand.

"Look, Sherlock, I haven't thought much of this through," he explains. "Only this." Looking him steadily in the eyes, John says, "I gave Mary my ring when I married her, and mine will stay on my hand till I die. You… "

He clears his throat. Sniffs and clears it again; and when he can speak, he says, simply, "This is for you. For as long as you'll have me."

Sherlock looks from John's red-rimmed eyes to the case, then pries it open. Nestled inside are two medals - his Operational Service Medal for Afghanistan, and the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross John had been awarded after he'd been wounded in action. But it's the cheap chain overlaying them that attracts Sherlock's jealous attention. He pulls it out and holds it up, the better to see the dog tags that dangle from it.

A shy smile spreads over Sherlock's face.

"I always wanted these," he quietly confesses.

John takes the chain and places it around Sherlock's neck, then gathers up the small discs to drop them inside his shirt. Sherlock places a protective hand over the lump they make.

"I'm not taking them off," he warns, and now it's John who breaks into a smile.

"You don't have to," he says. "They're yours."

They lean close, the languid brush of their lips only the second kiss of many to come. That night, Sherlock is the last thing John sees before he drifts into dreamless sleep.

And the first thing he sees in the morning.


	24. Chapter 24

**Epilogue: October, 2041**

John peers out the kitchen window at Annie, listless in the rocking chair on the verandah and looking out at the sea. It hurts to see her in pain and know there's nothing he can do to make it better. He misses the days when a kiss and a plaster, or a mug of hot chocolate, could cure all her ills.

It doesn't stop him from trying.

He takes the tea tray and carries it out. John gives her a smile, sets the tray down on the small rattan table, and settles in his mismatched Adirondack chair beside her.

"Here we are, then," he says, playing mother. Annie's always liked her tea sweet, with lemon rather than milk, and John is prepared to indulge her in this for as long she wants if it will alleviate even a little of her loss. She takes the cup with a grateful smile, closing her eyes as she sips.

"Mmm," she murmurs. "That's delicious. I really do need to talk Sherlock into letting me take a jar or two home with me."

John snorts as he stirs the milk in his own cup.

"You don't have to talk him into anything. He'd give you all the damned jars if you asked."

Annie smiles and glances down the path to where Sherlock is crouched, explaining some bit of wildlife esoterica to a rapt young boy.

"He might at that. Although, ever since Mikey… "

John's laugh rings out, and Sherlock glances over at them, squinting in the sunlight before turning his attention back to the towheaded boy beside him.

"I didn't think he'd ever forgive you for that," John says, shaking his head with a rueful smile.

Annie nods, taking another sip.

"It was worth it just to see the offended look on his face at the hospital," she says conspiratorially. "Besides, like I told him, he was named for Paul's father."

John cocks his eyebrow, and Annie laughs - a rare, welcome sound.

"Well, maybe not _just_ for for him."

"Mycroft didn't stop lording it over Sherlock for months, you know. If ever anyone was in danger of being completely disowned, it was you."

"Sherlock could never disown me - he likes me far too much. Besides," Annie says with a grin. "As far as he's concerned, it's 'Michael' and always will be."

John laughs, then looks out again to find his two boys, young and old, heading hand-in-hand towards the shallow rockpool below. The sight brings back memories of long-ago family trips to the Sussex seaside and the quiet rapport that had blossomed between Sherlock and his daughter. He knows Sherlock hates his impotence in the face of Annie's loss as much as himself, venting it in the only way he knows - by walking an interested listener through his unique understanding of the world. As for Mikey, while he loves his gruff Granddad John and always has, he's as besotted with Sherlock as Annie ever was - especially now that Paul's gone.

"He'd do anything for you," John says softly, then looks up to find Annie's eyes filling. His face crumples in sympathy; then Annie's shaking her head and rubbing her eyes with the pads of her fingers as she'd always done as a child.

"It's okay, Dad. You know me - always crying these days."

John rummages in his pocket for a tissue, holding out a ragged specimen she recoils from.

"No thanks - I'm fine, really. It just happens. You know."

He does.

* * *

When Annie's car has long since faded from sight, and John's tidied their room (an addition to the cottage put in by mutual agreement, for visitors and those times when things got a bit too cosy), he settles on the sofa next to Sherlock and lays his head on his shoulder with a tired sigh. Sherlock responds in kind, tilting his head - now more grey than not - against John's, taking his wrinkled hand and stroking it with his thumb. They're quiet for a time; when John speaks, the words are a familiar refrain.

"You're not allowed to die."

It's something he says from time to time, on those rare nights when the old melancholy comes. Sherlock nods and gives John's hand a gentle squeeze.

"I won't," he lies, and gathers John close in the light of a dying fire.

 **The End**


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